STATUS
COMPLETED
CLIENT
TYPOLOGY
Work
SIZE M2/FT2
102,192 / 1,100,000
SHARE
Google Bay View is Google’s first-ever ground-up campus with the mission to operate on carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2030. The buildings deliver on Google’s ambition to create human-centric, sustainable innovations for the future of Google’s workplace and scalable, replicable solutions for the construction industry and beyond.
Located on a 42-acre site at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, the 1.1 million sq ft Google Bay View Campus brings three new buildings, 20 acres of open space, a 1,000-person event center, and 240 short-term employee accommodation units to the area. All three buildings are constructed as lightweight canopy structures optimized for interior daylight, views, collaboration, and activities.
Anchored in three themes defined by Google’s design brief at the beginning of the project – innovation, nature, and community – the design is driven by flexibility and extraordinary user experience that inspires collaboration and co-creation. Team spaces are on the upper level and gathering spaces are below, separating focus and collaborative areas while still providing easy access to both. The second floor design has variation in floorplates to give teams a designated “neighborhood” area that is highly flexible to change with their needs.
The site has achieved a LEED-NC v4 Platinum certification – making it the largest LEED v4 BD+C: NC Platinum certified project in the world – and has become the largest facility ever to attain the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Living Building Challenge (LBC) Water Petal Certification.
Bay View operates entirely on electric energy. The integrated geothermal pile system at Bay View, which is the largest in North America, is estimated to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 50% and will help both heat and cool the campus. The massive geoexchange field is integrated into the structural system, reducing the amount of water typically used for cooling by 90%, equal to 5 million gallons of water annually.
To help deliver on Google’s commitment to replenish 120% of the water the HQ consumes by 2030, the site is net water-positive with all non-potable water demands being met using the recycled water it generates on site. The on-site systems built by Google collect, treat, and reuse all stormwater and wastewater and provide habitat restoration, sea level rise protection, and access to the beauty of natural wetlands for both Googlers and the public on the nearby Bay Trail.
The long-span canopy (120 ft) rests on cruciform columns which also relay services from the solar roof above. The selection of this structural system allows the entire workspace to be open and connected under one roof. Access to natural light and views with reduced glare during working hours were priority design elements, achieved through the use of carefully-placed clerestory windows.
On the exterior, all three buildings feature a first-of-its-kind “dragonscale” solar skin roof equipped with 50,000 silver solar panels that generate a total of nearly seven megawatts of energy.
“Our design of the new Bay View campus is the result of an incredibly collaborative design process. Working with a client as data driven as Google has led to an architecture where every single decision is informed by hard information and empirical analysis. The result is a campus where the striking dragonscale solar canopies harvest every photon that hits the buildings; the energy piles store and extract heating and cooling from the ground, and even the naturally beautiful floras are in fact hardworking rootzone gardens that filter and clean the water from the buildings. All in all, a campus where front of house and back of house, technology and architecture, and form and function have been fused into a new and striking hybrid.”
The Bay View buildings are split across only two floors, with desks and team spaces on the upper level, and the amenity spaces below. A series of indoor “courtyards” throughout the buildings connect the two levels, giving teams easy access to cafes, kitchenettes, conference rooms, and all-hands spaces. The courtyards also encourage the physiological benefits of physical movement when circulating between levels and different modes of work, and double as wayfinding devices.
Rather than being segmented by excessive columns and support walls, the structural innovation of the canopy roof allows for a wide-open workspace; every person has equal access to views across the floorplate, and through the perimeter facade and clerestory windows to the outdoors.
"Google Bay View offers a workplace experience that is an antithesis to an urban high-rise; Containing as much area as the tallest office tower in San Francisco, the typically stacked floorplates are redistributed into a flat array, creating a vibrant village. While on-site carbon and water neutrality is challenging for skyscrapers, this bay-scraper typology enables us to harvest the power of the sun, earth, and water. We hope Bay View will provide a quantum leap in the evolution of the workplace, elevate the benchmark for sustainable design, and inspire the next generations of users and visitors to the building."
The campus includes 17.3 acres of high-value natural areas – including wet meadows, woodlands, and marsh – that contribute to Google’s broader efforts to reestablish missing essential habitat in the Bay Area.
Google’s mission to unlock advancements for the benefit of the environment and the entire industry have led to several scalable solutions in working on the Bay View campus: increasing modular construction, geothermal at new scales, innovation in PV design, a permitted blackwater system, waste diverted from landfill, improved total number of products vetted for Red List ingredients, and landscape designed to advance water stewardship and create valuable habitat for threatened wildlife.
Overall, the Google Bay View campus has forged a new framework, materials language, and ecological approach that will help push both the future of the workplace, and the built environment-at-large, forward.
Agla Egilsdottir Ania Agnieszka Podlaszewska Beat Schenk Benjamin Caldwell Bjarke Ingels Blake Smith Claire Thomas Spiller Daniel Sundlin David Iseri Douglass Alligood Dylan Hames Isabella Marcotulli Isela Liu Jan Leenknegt Jason Wu Leon Rost Linus Saavedra Michelle Stromsta Rita Sio Ryan Harvey Shu Zhao Thomas Christoffersen Thomas McMurtrie Zhonghan Huang Alan Tansey Alessandra Peracin Ali Chen Andriani Atmadja Armen Menendian Bernard Peng Brian Zhang Camilo Francisco Aspeny Inostroza Cheyne Owens Christopher Wilson Cristian Lera Silva Cristina Medina-Gonzalez Danielle Kemble Deb Campbell Derek Wong Diandian Li Erik Kreider Eva Maria Mikkelsen Florencia Kratsman Gaurav Sardana Guillaume Evain Hacken Li Helen Shuyang Chen Jennifer Wood Ji-Young Yoon Jia Chengzhen Jian Yong Khoo Joshua Burns Joshua Plourde Kalina Pilat Kurt Nieminen Mads Kjaer Manon Otto Marcus Kujala Meghan Bean Nandi Lu Nicole Passarella Olga Khuraskina Oliver Colman Patrick Hyland Peter Kwak Ramona Montecillo Sebastian Grogaard Seo Young Shin Siva Sepehry Nejad Terrence Chew Tiago Sá Timothy Cheng Tingting Lyu Tracy Sodder Valentino Vitacca Vincenzo Polsinelli Walid Bhatt Ye Sul Cho Yina Moore Ziad Shehab
AWARDS
Facade Tectonics Institute's Vitruvian Award, 2023
Silicon Valley Business Journal Structures Award, Best Architecture, 2023
Engineering New Record (ENR)’s Global Best Projects competition, Best Office Project, 2022
COLLABORATORS
BIG - Bjarke Ingels group
Heatherwick Studio
Sares Regis
Adamson Associates
STUDIOS
Populous
Thornton Tomasetti
Integral Group
Olin
BKF
Arup
Sherwood
Holmes
Kleinfelder
Loisos + Ubbelohde
FMS
C.S. Caulkins Co.
Teecom
Whiting-Turner
Applied Wayfinding
