Google Engineering Centre, São Paulo – Leveraging Existing Buildings
The retrofit of the Google Engineering Centre in São Paulo began with a question the industry does not typically ask: rather than starting with a new building, what could be achieved by understanding, retaining and enhancing the environmental qualities of one that already exists?
Developed through a partnership between Google and the Institute for Technological Research (IPT) on the main campus of the University of São Paulo, the project transforms a 1940s office building into a contemporary workplace while retaining its primary structure. Narrow floor plates, generous clear heights, exposed thermal mass, large operable windows and a close relationship with the surrounding landscape already provided most of the conditions for a climate-responsive building. kb&co’s objective was to leverage what already exists.
In a retrofit, orientation, floor plate depth and structural form are already fixed, so the work concentrated on treating the envelope. Environmental analyses were embedded from the earliest stages and repeated iteratively as the design developed, testing thermal, solar and daylight performance in parallel, deployed as a tool to guide the design rather than a final validation exercise. With focus on intervention only where necessary, external shading was introduced strategically, according to solar exposure, protection already provided by trees, and the architectural typology of each space. The existing windows were also largely retained and refurbished, with the high-level fixed panels converted to openable and motorised tipping panels, to further improve natural ventilation efficacy and its controllability.
The most consequential decision was to question the thermal comfort criteria. Drawing on adaptive comfort principles rather than the conventional 21-23°C range, setpoints of 24°C, 26°C and 28°C were each tested against thermal performance in natural ventilation mode. Results show that at a 24°C threshold, the building can operate passively for around 60% of occupied hours, rising to roughly 85% at 28°C, reducing active cooling demand by an estimated 60-70%.
A comparative assessment also showed that an equivalent new build would carry approximately 73% greater embodied carbon than the retrofit, and demolition followed by new construction approximately 82% greater.
The work was presented at PLEA Conference 2026 in Costa Rica together with Google Americas. The project, completed in mid-2026, demonstrates that sustainability does not always call for more technology or greater complexity, but should begin with looking carefully at what already exists and finding ways to make those inherent qualities work harder.
