Google unveils unique and eco-friendly mass timber office

George Avalos, The Mercury News on Nov 21, 2024

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SUNNYVALE, California — Google unveiled Wednesday its first mass timber office building, a cutting-edge and eco-friendly structure in Sunnyvale the search giant hopes will be a productive and healthy workspace.

Over time, the five-story structure — built on the site of the one-time headquarters of video games pioneer Atari — is expected to have 96% less carbon emissions than a conventional steel and concrete office building of equivalent size.

“This building, 1265 Borregas, showcases creating sustainable buildings that empower people to do their best work,” said Michelle Kaufmann, Google’s director of R+D for the Built Environment and the guiding force behind the creation of the new workspace in Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park district.

Google executives are confident the eye-catching office building, constructed largely with pieces of Douglas fir wood pressed together, will provide workers with a healthier environment.

“The way to empower people to do their best work is to give them access to nature, views and daylight,” Kaufmann said during a ribbon-cutting event to officially open the building on Wednesday. “This building has it all. 1265 Borregas reflects our latest ways of working.”

Construction began on the building in late 2020 and the first Google employees moved into their offices in September.

The building totals 182,500 square feet, according to official documents on file at Sunnyvale City Hall, and could potentially accommodate 700 to 900 workers. While company officials said “hundreds” of Google employees work in the building, the company didn’t provide a precise number, as per its policy.

Most Google employees are working in the office three days a week, according to Kaufmann, with some teams working up to four or five days a week.

The company thanked Sunnyvale officials for working closely with the tech titan on the project.

“We always strive to be really good neighbors,” Scott Foster, Google’s vice president of real estate, said during Wednesday’s event. “We are grateful to the city of Sunnyvale to let us do something different.”

With its first mass timber building, Google hopes to spark a trend in the office space.

“It starts with one building, but we want this to be more than something great for Google,” Kaufmann said. “We want this to be great for the whole industry. This type of construction could benefit millions and billions of people.”

The company is betting that the building can serve as an example for other projects whose builders strive to be environmentally friendly.

“Mass timber was central to our design goals,” said Natalie Telewiak, principal executive with Canada-based Michael Green Architecture. “We created human-centric spaces. We hope this will serve as a model and benchmark for future sustainable architecture.”

When the tech titan embarked on its quest to develop a mass timber building, the company set goals that seemed to be tough to achieve at best, according to Kaufman.

Mountain View-based Google sought to fashion and construct an office site that would be completed rapidly and economically — yet still produce never-before-seen environmental benefits compared with typical steel and concrete buildings.

“The building is beautiful,” Sunnyvale Mayor Larry Klein said. “Seeing that open wood, the wood grain, is incredible. People can feel happy to go to work today.”

Klein also announced that Google.org had provided a $100,000 grant to Sunnyvale Community Services for homeless programs and a $50,000 grant to the Sunnyvale Education Foundation.

“Google has always been very supportive for many years,” said Marie Bernard, executive director of Sunnyvale Community Services, who noted that the grant comes at a time when the nonprofit is handling a 20% annual increase in people who need food donations or assistance.

As audacious as this effort might have seemed at the outset of the company’s mass timber office voyage, Google officials were convinced that the company’s DNA would forge a path to a successful outcome.

“That’s always been part of Google. To try the impossible,” Kaufmann said in an interview after the event.