Google officially opened the Bay View campus in California to its employees, which took the company years to build, and is powered by renewable energy.
This is the first Google campus she has developed in-house, and it doesn’t look like traditional office buildings. In addition to the unusual design, it is focused on sustainability and offers an “adaptable and healthy workplace.”
“For the first time, we have designed one of our large campuses ourselves, and this process has allowed us to rethink the idea of an office,” the company said.
One of the first design details that catch the eye is the campus roof, which looks like dragon scales from afar. It consists of 90,000 silvery solar panels capable of generating almost 7 megawatts of power, or up to 40% of the electricity needs of offices.
There are two kitchens on campus, equipped with electric appliances instead of gas. In addition, the campus has automatic window shades that let in plenty of natural light during the day, and a ventilation system that uses only outside air. The rest of the electricity needed to run Google headquarters will come from nearby wind farms and other renewable energy sources.
The new campus also houses North America’s largest geothermal facility, which will help heat and cool buildings without fossil fuels. It also reduces the amount of water used for cooling by 90%.
The geothermal piling system in the California campus uses pumps to absorb heat from the ground during the winter and radiate the heat into the ground during the summer.