Google St. John's Terminal

First opened in 1934 as the southern terminus for New York’s High Line, St. John’s Terminal has transformed into the New York headquarters for Google’s Global Business Organization.

Building a NYC employee base of over 14,000 full time Googlers over the last 20 years, Google sought to reimagine St. John’s Terminal into a dynamic headquarters that served as a steward of the building’s history while redefining what an innovative, sustainable, and collaborative office could look like. Following a successful partnership launching Pier 57, Google’s global events center in New York, the tech company engaged Downstream to lead experiential design for this ambitious project.

Over three years of strategic planning, concept development, prototyping, and execution, Downstream helped transform the terminal by bringing stories to life within its client and partner-facing areas. 21 unique experiential activations appear across four floors, including a metal sculpture augmented with programmable lighting to reference the building’s origins; The Community Hub, fostering community-building interactive experiences; an artistic Event Wayfinding System serving functional and experiential needs across multiple floors of event space; climate-driven moving visuals enhanced by electromechanical wind chimes; and storytelling areas like the Community Garden, Book Nook, and Reflecting Pools sharing Google’s community initiatives and innovations.

St. John’s Terminal represents a fundamental shift to a teams-first work environment. Its diverse mix of spaces, enhanced by multi-level activated sculptural elements, QR code-driven story plaques, and large-scale workplace technologies, helps groups connect with each other, fosters DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging), and accelerates the innovations that power Google's business. This portfolio project sets a new benchmark for how experiential design elevates the workplace experience to actual placemaking and community creation.