Perhaps trying to regain its mojo after a difficult summer on the stock market, Facebook has selected Frank Gehry to design an expansion to its Menlo Park Campus in California. The project, scheduled to break ground next year, will include a quirky 420,000-square-foot warehouse topped by a sprawling garden. The cavernous space will contain open offices for as many as 2,800 software engineers, according to Everett Katigbak, Facebook’s environmental design manager. The firm wouldn’t reveal the project’s price tag.
Facebook is relatively new to Menlo Park, having moved from Palo Alto last year into a Gensler-designed retrofit of Sun Microsystems’ old campus. The Gehry building will be located just across the street. Other tech giants will be located nearby as well: Foster and Partners’ new ring-shaped offices for Apple are about 25 minutes away in Cupertino. And Google’s “Googleplex” is located about 20 minutes away in Mountain View. Google has yet to name the architect for its latest expansion after firing Ingenhoven Architects earlier this year. Looks like we’ve got an architectural arms race in Silicon Valley. You’ve been poked, Google.
[ Via LA Times.]
