The design team took a radically new approach to workplace organization, splitting the various 400,000- to 600,000-square-foot buildings across only two floors, with desks and team spaces on the upper level and amenity spaces below. By focusing the high-traffic areas and amenities in the lower levels, we removed many of the distractions that public areas can cause for those Googlers doing heads-down work.

Bay View was designed with careful attention to the characteristics of spaces you can see and feel, like materials and daylight, but also to aspects that are harder to see, like air quality, thermal comfort, and acoustics.

The goal from day one was to design the most flexible work environment possible that enables equitable experiences for all. The design team parceled out the floorplates in such a way that each Google team would have a designated area – their home base – but that the building’s infrastructure would support ultimate flexibility within that parcel. For example, there are wall systems which can contain different types of furniture, all of which can be easily converted over time.

Standard workplace design is typically coordinated within an inch of its life–furniture, lighting, and floor cores are aligned in such a way that if you move anything, it becomes a construction project. With Bay View, however, the building systems are completely agnostic of desk layouts and able to convert over time. We were driven to think long and hard about what “adaptability” truly means and how to build systems to support it.