After designing Google’s new headquarter campus in Mountain View, California, the BIG and Heatherwick Studio team were tasked with designing the company’s new offices in London. The ten-story block will be Google’s first purpose-built building outside the United States. Rather than imposing a universal style on all of Google’s buildings we have sought to develop a design that is rooted in the local character of King’s Cross. The Silicon Valley startup garage meets the London train sheds in an architecture that balances tall open workscapes with nooks and crannies; clarity with eccentricity; and innovation with heritage. Taking advantage of the contextually defined building envelope, we have designed a continuous cascade of work environments that creates connections across the multiple floor plates. By opening up the ground floor and activating the roofscape, the light and airy workspaces are sandwiched between a roofscape of terraced gardens and ground floor of public market halls, auditoria and street shops.