Employees have started moving into Facebook’s new headquarters, a 435,555-sf building in Menlo Park, Calif., whose famed architect Frank Gehry describes as “unassuming, matter-of-fact, and cost effective.”
Gehry says he and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, had been working on this project for more than three years. The building sits on 22 acres within Facebook’s complex, the former campus of Sun Microsystems that the social media giant acquired in February 2011. The new headquarters is the 20th building to be constructed on that campus, hence its nickname MK20.
Level 10 was the General Contractor on this project, whose cost has not been disclosed by Facebook.
The headquarters features what Zuckerberg, on his own Facebook page, says is “the largest open floor plan in the world, a single room that fits thousands of people.” Winding staircases lead between floors. Zuckerberg says that the interior design “is pretty simple, it isn’t fancy. That’s on purpose.” About 2,800 of Facebook’s engineers will work in this building.
Glass-enclosed meeting rooms are situated in the center of this open space. One of the meeting rooms has been compared to a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese or a McDonald’s playground. Indeed, there’s more than a little playfulness in the brightly colored furniture and walls throughout (including a glaringly orange hallway).
Facebook also hired Bay Area artists to design art installations for the building, which include an undulating mosaic wall and lots of dripping paint.
While it hasn’t released official photos of the headquarters, Facebook let Instagrammers with larger follower counts roam the building and photograph what they thought looked interesting or cool.
The building dips and rises from 45 to 73 feet. One of its attractions is a nine-acre rooftop park, designed by CMG Landscape Architecture, which includes a half-mile looping walking path. More than 400 trees were planted on what Wired magazine calls “a garden-roofed fantasyland.” The insulated roof also contributed to this building earning LEED Gold certification.
The exterior is sheathed in hyper-reflective siding, which is something of a Gehry trademark. But Facebook chose fritted window panes because the lines or patterns embedded in the glass are more visible, and, therefore, safer for birds that otherwise might fly into the windows.
Construction started on this building in early 2013. Among the concessions that Facebook made to get municipal approval include agreeing to build 15 low-cost homes or contribute $4.5 million toward affordable housing. It also agreed to restrict the number of vehicles that enter and leave the campus.
Facebook is creating a $500,000 charitable foundation and setting up a local job-training program. It is also cleaning up soil contaminated with toxic chemicals.
Related Stories
Office Buildings | Jan 24, 2024
Office designs need to lean in on wellness, says a new HMC Architects report
The firm highlights seven recent design projects for public-sector clients as examples.
Industry Research | Jan 23, 2024
Leading economists forecast 4% growth in construction spending for nonresidential buildings in 2024
Spending on nonresidential buildings will see a modest 4% increase in 2024, after increasing by more than 20% last year according to The American Institute of Architects’ latest Consensus Construction Forecast. The pace will slow to just over 1% growth in 2025, a marked difference from the strong performance in 2023.
Adaptive Reuse | Jan 23, 2024
Adaptive reuse report shows 55K impact of office-to-residential conversions
The latest RentCafe annual Adaptive Reuse report shows that there are 55,300 office-to-residential units in the pipeline as of 2024—four times as much compared to 2021.
Giants 400 | Jan 23, 2024
Top 70 Medical Office Building Construction Firms for 2023
PCL Construction Enterprises, Swinerton, Skanska USA, Clark Group, and Hensel Phelps top BD+C's ranking of the nation's largest medical office building general contractors and construction management (CM) firms for 2023, as reported in the 2023 Giants 400 Report.
Giants 400 | Jan 23, 2024
Top 50 Medical Office Building Engineering Firms for 2023
Jacobs, Salas O'Brien, KPFF Consulting Engineers, IMEG, and Kimley-Horn head BD+C's ranking of the nation's largest medical office building engineering and engineering/architecture (EA) firms for 2023, as reported in the 2023 Giants 400 Report.
Giants 400 | Jan 23, 2024
Top 110 Medical Office Building Architecture Firms for 2023
SmithGroup, CannonDesign, E4H Environments for Health Architecture, and Perkins Eastman top BD+C's ranking of the nation's largest medical office building architecture and architecture engineering (AE) firms for 2023, as reported in the 2023 Giants 400 Report.
Office Buildings | Jan 19, 2024
How to strengthen office design as employees return to work
Adam James, AIA, Senior Architect, Design Collaborative, shares office design tips for the increasingly dynamic workplace.
Adaptive Reuse | Jan 18, 2024
Coca-Cola packaging warehouse transformed into mixed-use complex
The 250,000-sf structure is located along a now defunct railroad line that forms the footprint for the city’s multi-phase Beltline pedestrian/bike path that will eventually loop around the city.
Sponsored | BD+C University Course | Jan 17, 2024
Waterproofing deep foundations for new construction
This continuing education course, by Walter P Moore's Amos Chan, P.E., BECxP, CxA+BE, covers design considerations for below-grade waterproofing for new construction, the types of below-grade systems available, and specific concerns associated with waterproofing deep foundations.
Biophilic Design | Jan 16, 2024
New supertall Manhattan tower features wraparound green terraces
At 66 stories and 1,031.5 ft high, The Spiral is BIG’s first supertall building and first commercial high-rise in New York.