Google needed a venue large enough to accommodate visitors from the TED conference, and yet small enough to fit into a limited footprint in the courtyard outside of the Long Beach Convention Center. The venue also had to be versatile enough to include a range of activities to keep convention goers engaged and entertained. And it needed to be as innovative as it was iconic.
Two weeks before the TED conference, we set up shop in Los Angeles with five, 40-foot shipping containers. Each container was delicately lifted from the street into Google’s assigned space outside of the Long Beach Convention Center. Our 3,000 square foot structure was then filled with all things Google, including interactive YouTube screens, viewing areas for the TED talks, an Android charging station, a basketball hoop, a claw machine, a coffee bar, and various other cool activities to take a break from the conference.
The end result was dubbed the Google Garage, a space where you felt comfortable but amazed at the same time. We modified our containers to create three iconic structures that reached twenty-four feet into the air. The idea was to fit the Google culture into a container. And we did it. Give or take four containers.