Architecture:
Amid constant change, tech companies seek permanence.
In an ever-more virtual world, filled with people who cling dumbly to their smartphones, how strange that reallife architecture is becoming part of the tech world’s brand.
Apple’s immaculate glass doughnut is one example. Facebook’s single-floor garden topped extravaganza — designed by Frank Gehry, no less! — is another. Google is planning a futuristic campus of its own in Mountain View. And when the big players set the tone, the wannabes fall into line, eager to make a good first impression in a culturally fluid environment where the only constant is that everything is in flux.
Never mind that 20 years ago, Apple flirted with bankruptcy. Google didn’t exist. Mark Zuckerberg was networking his dad’s home and office computers. Corporate monuments today are being conceived with an eye on tomorrow — even if tomorrow is an unknowable future.
“Buildings and (corporate) campuses have become venues for companies to express what they are,” said Randy Howder, a principal who specializes in tech at Gensler, a design firm that has done dozens of projects in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. “They know that employees and customers are more design-savvy, and they see it as a foundational element.”
And as long as the economy holds, we’ll likely see more investments in real estate banking on a rosy future.
“Some companies feel so secure that they don’t fill the need to move forward with an exit strategy” where you stint on architecture to minimize your investment, said architect Paul Woolford, director of design at the architectural firm HOK. “Others, they may hope to grow fast and sell out, but they’re still cognizant of real estate as part of their asset base.”
Things weren’t like this in the fabled but dusty era when computer legends started in the garage and then moved into concrete shells surrounded by parking spaces. Binge-watch “Halt and Catch Fire” on Netflix if you need a reminder of what computer startups looked like back then: Making a stylish statement absolutely was not the point when you were churning out mainframe components and the like.
Flash-forward to the firm SurveyMonkey, the engine behind those online surveys you’d rather not take, and its new headquarters in San Mateo’s Bay Meadows development. The four-story structure is a focused swirl of eye candy designed by the San Francisco office of HOK. Terra-cotta tiles add a hint of gravitas; the overscale lobby features a light installation where the company’s simian logo spins like a slow-moving top and then dissolves.
“Part of our strategy for attracting talent is being in a fun place,” said Tim Maly, chief operating officer for SurveyMonkey. When hunting for room to grow, “We would have disqualified our building if it had been an unattractive or uninteresting design.”
I met Maly and Woolford last month after a panel discussion in Bay Meadows on “The Evolving Silicon Valley Workplace,” hosted by SPUR — a regional policy think tank that recently published a report on “Rethinking the Corporate Campus.”
First came a tour of the SurveyMonkey headquarters. It offered glimpses of everything you’d expect in a Silicon Valley work/playhouse, including iced cookies free for the taking that were large enough to be Segway wheels.
In his talk, though, Maly emphasized place making more than perks.
SurveyMonkey’s home is the latest stage in the transformation of Bay Meadows from a racetrack (demolished in 2008) into a transit-oriented neighborhood. There are 1,250 homes completed or planned and 18 acres of parks plus space for five office blocks being designed by HOK, of which SurveyMonkey is the first.
Across from the headquarters is a “town square,” part of a pedestrian-friendly “social street” lined by the office buildings. Berkeley’s Fieldwork Brewing is accompanied by a bocce court. On the next block, you’ll find wooden swings and pingpong tables.
“Bay Meadows wasn’t proven, but we bought into this vision of an integrated mixeduse district,” Maly said. SurveyMonkey was founded in Portland, Ore., and established its Bay Area beachhead in downtown Palo Alto: “We view real estate as a strategic and talent decision . ... It can really have an impact on employee satisfaction.”
The intersection of architecture and branding is the calling card at the new campus of Nvidia in Santa Clara — a gigantic two-story structure designed by Gensler that from above looks a lot like the computer graphic firm’s logo.
“Our ambitions and focus are the inspiration for the project’s working name, Endeavor,” proclaims the firm’s website. “Its unique design — based on the triangle, the fundamental building block of computer graphics — will deliver functionality and efficiency in an open, sweeping environment.”
But the most disruptive tech landscape of all is the one being crafted by Salesforce in San Francisco: Three towers reach toward the sky from the corner of Mission and Fremont streets.
Rather than build a campus from scratch, the software firm purchased one tower, fully leased another and placed its name on the third — a 61-story, 1,070-foot structure that can be seen from all nine Bay Area counties but also is located smack downtown. Meanwhile, Salesforce steers much of its philanthropic donations toward such vital aspects of the community as San Francisco’s public schools.
I’d like to think Salesforce’s comfort with city life offers a glimpse of tech’s physical future. That aspirational firms will decide whether being in the thick of things counts for more than easily privatized isolation.
But these days, life isn’t that simple.
Facebook is a perfect example: The social media titan last month “liked” 181 Fremont St. in San Francisco, signing a lease for all 436,000 square feet of office space in the tower that opens next year within a block of Salesforce Tower. Does that mean Mark Zuckerberg will close shop in Mountain View? Not likely: The firm is cooking up expansion plans down there, as well.
Next to the new Gehry building, Facebook occupies a campus that once housed Sun Microsystems, which Oracle swallowed up in 2009. On the back of a giant “Like” symbol — one where you sometime find tourists snapping selfies — is the old Sun logo. Zuckerberg left it in place to remind employees that this too could pass. We shall see. If tech was ever a niche, those days are long gone. It permeates every facet of our life. No wonder that in return, its workplaces increasingly are reshaping the landscapes around us.