In L.A.’s Playa Vista neighborhood, Google has transformed a historic timber hangar through adaptive reuse and biophilic design, providing 1,000 employees with a unique, open-plan work environment. The 450,000-square-foot, four-level timber hangar—named “Spruce Goose” after the Howard Hughes plane it once housed) incorporates a variety of nature-inspired design elements—creating an inviting and awe-inspiring office for the high-tech juggernaut.
Open floor plates, set back 20 feet from both the interior envelope and the central timber spine, offer workers vast longitudinal vistas of the facility’s biomorphic forms. A series of curved ribs reconstructed from the hangar’s salvaged wood support the ceiling, and the remaining smaller pieces have been used to construct furniture throughout. Spruce Goose’s interior makes the most of wood’s warm color, collinear lines, and contours, elements that are complemented by greenery and an abundance of natural sunlight. Inside, the landscape design includes lush, mature palm groves with custom-designed planters, irrigation, and grow lights.
The landscape design employs biophilic design with lushly planted groves for the interior employee amenity spaces. The exterior site utilizes the phytoremediation planting of hybrid Poplar trees to stitch together the Google Playa Vista campus and bring a fresh perspective to workplace design.
Eight artists were commissioned to create large-scale original works inspired by nature—such as a multi-story cloudscape by Hueman containing folds of fabric that are reminiscent of the red hues of a California sunset and a perceptual sculpture by Michael Murphy that evokes a rain shower.
A Virginia-based state-of-the-art materials lab with a focus on healthy, red-list-free material selection through Cradle to Cradle Certified®, Health Product Declaration, Forest Stewardship Council and Declare, is providing its employees with a calming work environment while meeting some of the most rigorous environmentally sustainable building standards in the industry. The two-floor, 8,650-square-foot facility is LEED v4 Platinum certified and targets the International Living Future Institute’s (ILFI) Petal and Net Zero Energy certifications.
Upon entering the building, employees and visitors are greeted by a large-scale living wall. Interior biophilic elements—unique for a testing facility of this kind—include an abundance of sunlight, an exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glulam structure, and a natural color palette for carpet, furniture and soft furnishings. Renewable energy from the facility’s solar array provides cost-effective, year-round hot water and heating for all of the lab’s service bays and testing areas.
A workplace where inside can be outside, and outside ventures in—that’s the vision behind Hacker Architects’ 300,000 square-foot Field Office, which serves as the Portland-based design firm’s creative workspace. Despite its busy, urban locale, the office affords myriad opportunities to connect and commune with nature.
The facility’s workspaces and lush landscaping are woven together seamlessly. Foliage-rich terraces are equipped with work surfaces that house power to support productivity, while plants shelter these spaces, giving employees a tangible connection to the natural environment.
A combination of reclaimed and sustainably-certified wood adds warmth and human-scale texture to the interior; living walls and indoor landscaping, an interior plant and succulent garden, and outdoor park-like sanctuaries provide a biophilic backdrop for social functions and private reflection. Outdoors, a large green roof accommodates 4 “sky parks” with sweeping views of the city and nearby Forest Park.
Abundant use of wood, warm materials, organic forms, natural light, and protection from a nearby freeway were the primary features that the Washington Fruit & Produce Company requested for the design of their new commercial office. Surrounded by sustainably cultivated farmland, a headquarters featuring biophilic design was a natural choice for the Yakima, WA-based company.
The approach for the new office was to create an inwardly focused oasis. The building is surrounded by earth berms and a site wall placed so that views out are directed upward toward the basalt hills and the foreground of freeways and industrial agribusiness are obscured.
The building includes exposed timber framing with glulam columns that are pitched and rotated a quarter turn, giving the light-filled, open-plan office an oblique roofline that disappears into the surrounding landscape.
Centered around a courtyard of native plants, the office complex provides occupants with a refuge from the noise and activity of nearby industrial processing yards. Expansive glazing and operable large-scale glass doors make for a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor spaces.
Brooklyn may not be the first setting that comes to mind for a nature-inspired office design, but when a one-hundred-year-old tech company launched an office for their Digital Accelerator, they fused old and new, nature and technology, wood and greenery to create a natural urban oasis. The resulting 67,000-square-foot project reimagines a heavy timber warehouse as an office of the future.
Designed as an extension of the nearby Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Digital Accelerator provides employees with an environment rich in sensory experiences, complete with original pine columns, living walls, and overhead wooden planters exploding with ferns.
A three-level bleacher and canteen space—dubbed “The Park”—and expansive timber tables encourage employees to gather for meetings and collaboration. Other biophilic design elements include wood-slatted ceilings, natural textured stonework, an abundance of natural light, and views of the Brooklyn Bridge and East River.