An office built like a web of neighbourhoods

Google India's new campus in Bengaluru focuses on sustainability and accessibility while living up to its name in design philosophy

- Shrabonti Bagchi

When you see it from a distance, the new Google India campus on Bengaluru's chaotic Outer Ring Road does look like the infinity symbol. With a curved, rounded structure—both the outer walls of the building as well as the roof—the building, seen as a whole, creates an impression of the endless loop. In a sea of boxy, angular buildings, this one, named Ananta, which means the infinite, stands out for its gracious form; modern, minimal and striking at the same time.

We are inside Ananta for an introduction and tour of the building, which was launched recently. It is one of Google's largest offices globally, complementing the company's three other campuses in India, in Hyderabad, Gurugram and Mumbai. The office, spread over 1.6 million sq. ft, can comfortably accommodate 5,000 workers—to put that in perspective, Google currently has around 10,000 in India.

Even before you walk into the building on the ground floor, a feeling of space and greenery envelopes you—all the more stark because of the contrast with the space right outside the building, where flyovers and metro pillars and broken pavements seem to stretch into another sort of infinity altogether.

Much as it is a pity that this sort of respite from urban ugliness is not accessible to everyone, one can't help but feel calmer the minute one steps into Ananta's entrance area, a cavernous space called the Sabha, dominated by an amphitheatre-style tiered seating space. The rest of the structure is built around the Sabha, which acts as a central meeting place or courtyard, evocative of traditional Indian building formats.