Google has unveiled the name of its new London headquarters, Platform 37, a purpose-built office at King’s Cross. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in collaboration with Heatherwick Studio, the 11-storey, building introduces a distinctive architectural language that responds to both the local urban context and the company’s operational needs.
Elevated volume, activated street: Platform 37’s urban strategy
Platform 37 occupies a 330-metre-long site adjacent to King’s Cross station, a historically layered transport and urban hub. The building’s “hung” main volume rises two storeys above the street, creating space underneath for a series of smaller timber retail and community units. This approach allows the building to present a monumental presence while maintaining human-scale engagement at street level, integrating seamlessly with the surrounding city fabric.
Inside, the design provides column-free interiors with triple-height ceilings, creating expansive, flexible workspaces. Cascading floor plates form multi-level environments that encourage spontaneous interaction and collaboration, while strategically placed voids and terraces visually and physically connect employees across floors. The long, continuous volume draws inspiration from nearby train sheds, but the lifted mass allows for a dynamic, layered pedestrian experience below.
Externally, a sculpted, densely planted rooftop garden offers panoramic city views while providing ecological value and supporting urban biodiversity, in partnership with the London Wildlife Trust and the borough of Camden.
The AI Exchange: Ground-floor engagement
Platform 37 incorporates the AI Exchange, a public space on the ground floor designed to engage visitors with artificial intelligence. The Exchange will host interactive exhibitions, free educational programming, and cultural events, linking the building’s purpose to the broader community. The building’s name references “Move 37”, a landmark play by DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI, highlighting the site as a platform for technological experimentation and research.
Sustainability and integrated building technology
Sustainability is embedded at every scale. Platform 37 prioritises low-carbon, locally sourced materials and features fully electric kitchens and equipment that enable real-time energy monitoring and optimisation. A network of 13,500 interconnected devices regulates energy efficiency throughout the building, complemented by solar shading to manage internal temperatures. The rooftop garden, densely planted with native species, forms both a visual and ecological asset, enhancing biodiversity in a dense urban environment.
Spanning more than 80,000m²—of which Google will occupy 60,000m²—and forming part of the King’s Cross campus for 7,000 employees, Platform 37 exemplifies how contemporary workplace architecture can combine monumental form, spatial flexibility, sustainable design, and civic engagement, responding to operational needs while engaging thoughtfully with the surrounding city.
