Mock-ups of the so-called ‘crabots’ are featured in lengthy planning documents submitted to the City of Mountain View Council in Silicon Valley [...] ‘Our objective is to create a solution that can be assembled efficiently and economically within pre-erected canopy structures by means of small, easily manoeuvrable cranes.’ ‘Through the life of the buildings this [will] allow reconfiguration and maintenance…of the canopy envelope from within.’ — architectsjournal.co.uk

The new Googleplex campus expansion, designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studios in collaboration to accommodate 20,000 new Mountain View employees, will be constructed by "an army of robot-crane hybrids", the Architect's Journal reports. Citing planning documents Google submitted to Mountain View Council earlier this week, AJ reports that these "crabots" would be "a mash-up of flexible crane and robotic machine".

The construction method fits squarely with Google's aim to keep their campus flexible and reconfigurable after it's built. As Nicholas Korody explained in our coverage introducing BIG and Heatherwick's design: "Eschewing immoveable concrete edifices, the campus would consist of a series of light-weight structures that can be moved around to accommodate new projects and product development as they unfold." Theoretically, these "crabots" could be the same employed to reconfigure the interior spaces as needed. Not sure whether they'd count among the 20,000, though.