Frank Gehry Is Designing Facebook’s New Office Building And That’s Sad

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/08/frank-gehry-is-designing-facebooks-new-office-building-and-thats-sad/

by eplanit • 14 years ago

37 42 14 years ago

gizmodo.com.au

taligent• 14 years ago

I don't even know where to begin with this article. It screams of some hipster annoyance at Facebook (uncool) liking Gehry (cool):

"Asking Gehry to design their latest building is the classic no-taste-masked-as-taste, socially accepted anti-establishment move."

thraveboy• 14 years ago

Totally agree.

dustincoates• 14 years ago

Completely agree. I'm no huge fan of Gehry, but if I had Facebook's money I would hire a top-line architect to design my building, too.

If they had gotten a drab, soulless building, there'd be complaints they had gone too corporate.

philwelch• 14 years ago

I don't think it's a hipster comment at all; it's spot on. Gehry doesn't get these projects because he's such a great architect. He gets them because he's a brand with a certain reputation, and the OP basically summed up what that reputation is and what it really means when someone hires Gehry based on that reputation.

It's clear Facebook is trying to emulate Apple, but somewhere in the process they missed the entire damned point and took the easy way out.

jcampbell1• 14 years ago

I agree. My guess is Zuckerberg hired Gehry because that was the only architect whose name he knew. Gehry is very old and his buildings are just expensive attention whores. I really wish he went with someone younger with actual talent. Jeanne Gang would have been a good choice.

Turing_Machine2• 14 years ago

De gustibus. Personally I value "doesn't leak" over "looks cool" when it comes to buildings...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/06/mit_sue...

cschmidt• 14 years ago

Have you ever been in the Stata Center? I think it is a really interesting place. Sure, they had a dispute over some leaks, but that shouldn't overshadow the building itself.

rwmj• 14 years ago

It looks horrible. I've not been inside it, just viewed it from the street, so I've no idea about how serious the leaks are.

Turing_Machine2• 14 years ago

I've been near it, but haven't been inside.

It's a very cool looking building, but "doesn't leak" still wins for me. Architecture is a demanding discipline in that your work of art also has to be a usable, practical structure. If it isn't, you've failed, IMO.

If you're going for artistic value alone, you should stick to sculpture.

amalcon• 14 years ago

From what I gather, it's also just a poor building in which to have an office. There are not a lot of right-angle corners, which makes furniture take up more space than it otherwise would.

champion2• 14 years ago

I think the outside is really interesting but inside is cold & cavernous. Which actually fits well with the MIT style, but not very warm or inviting.

FrojoS2• 14 years ago

Cool from the outside. But a shitty place to work and learn. Only the New Media Lab is worse: all glass, zero privacy.

Form should follow function. Especially for something that will last unchanged for decades.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

Two paragraphs in: "Oh, it's Gizmodo. How the hell did I get here?"

programminggeek• 14 years ago

Funny, at least they aren't getting a building that looks like a "like" button in the same way that Oracle's buildings look like database symbols.

mistercow• 14 years ago

I don't have any opinion about Gehry designing it, but I do have an opinion about Facebook's quote:

>It will be a large, one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse. Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks...

How can people possibly design and implement software under those conditions?

edwinnathaniel• 14 years ago

Ask Facebook how? They've been doing that for a while apparently.

nutjob123• 14 years ago

I find the ability to go into a quiet room with a closed door priceless.

odiroot• 14 years ago

Good question. I'm always baffled when people say (and believe it) that huge open space is the way to go. It's even worse when they think all employees (including HR, marketing, etc) have to sit there.

How numb do you have to be to spend 8 hours in these conditions, even doing nothing creative?

phleet2• 14 years ago

I was an intern in the Palo Alto office which was pretty similar to that, and I never felt distracted by it. With my headphones in, it doesn't really matter whether I'm in an office or loud open field.

FrojoS2• 14 years ago

I listen to a lot of music during my work, many many hours per day. But its usually optional. Its horrible when you have to wear head phones permanently. The pressure on the ear alone is something I need a brake from. Also, when solving a hard problem I need silence and I'm not an exception for sure.

I only once worked in an open office space, at BMW and absolutely hated it. They actually realized it was a mistake and introduced closed rooms with hot-desks which they called "thinking cells" (Denkzelle).

I believe the decision for open office space is often an example where the stated and actual goal are far apart. The managers want to save cost and scram more people into a cheap to build room. But they sell it as "creative" or "productive" workplace.

paulsutter• 14 years ago

Gehry is a genius of marketing, not design. Andy Warhol knew the key to fame was to make your work distinctive and memorable. He did it by incorporating familiar elements. People feel good when they can recognize something, "Oh, that must be a Warhol". And that's why Warhol became cool.

Gehry takes this idea to a whole new level - distinctive at all costs. His work is unpleasant, but people remember it. Thus Gehry becomes "cool". Hey, its a business strategy.

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

Gehry, like pretty much all artists, is hit or miss. But his hits are fantastic.

Walt Disney Concert Hall is one of the most stunning buildings on the west coast, inside and out. It's not a gimmick, it's genuine artistic achievement.

marquis• 14 years ago

Also the Pritzker pavilion in Chicago. It draws you in and even if you are at the back of field you feel you are still in the amphitheater.

phil• 14 years ago

Have you spent time in many Gehry buildings?

For example, the EMP here in Seattle looks pretty weird from the outside. I can see how you'd call it unpleasant/memorable based on pictures or driving by but once you go in it's great. Some beautiful interior spaces, well organized, works well for the purposes I've been there for.

nirvana• 14 years ago

Zuckerbergs attitude about this makes me think he's a terrible manager and probably not a very good programmer.

I get that some people prefer to work together in a room, constantly interrupting each other. I don't understand why, but I respect their desire to do that, and would say, let them do it.

But the idea that every engineer should be subjected to constant interruptions without the choice to have some personal space to focus on work is asinine.

I worked at Microsoft in the past. Their earliest buildings- from when they first got the chance to build their own office buildings are in the shape of very large Xs. Each of the four wings has a central hallway and then is divided up into rather small offices for one or two people. Everyone has a window out to the trees. Its the perfect programming environment (except for my neighbor who got in the habit of bouncing a racketball against our wall).

For an example of what I'm talking about check out building #1-10 here: http://goo.gl/maps/kQRzp

Your view was predominantly trees too. Later buildings are built like Es and other shapes that have a lot of surface area, though some became more "office like" during the period where they were hiring so many employees that they needed to maximize density rather than productivity. (irony, I know.)

One of the reasons I'm a startup founder rather than an employee was too many employers choosing "collaborative" office plans because they were cheaper.

And for the record, I've found that collaboration works much better when you have a choice about it-- when the serendipitous interactions happen in the break room or somewhere else where you're not trying to focus on a problem.

But hey, these days most of these sites are websites, and don't really have big engineering problems to solve. Maybe they don't need to think deeply.

For instance, compare this office with Apple's new Mothership. The O has a great deal of surface area, and looking out the outer windows you will only see parkland (The parking is underground and the property is bordered with trees.) Even the center area of the O is a park itself, and the O is so huge that it should be a decent view.

potatolicious• 14 years ago

> "But hey, these days most of these sites are websites, and don't really have big engineering problems to solve. Maybe they don't need to think deeply."

This is by far the most presumptuous and arrogant comment I've seen on HN this week.

Disingenuous too. You claim to "respect" people who like working in open office spaces, and then you turn around an insist they are less productive, and indeed, working on easy problems that don't require extensive thought.

Seriously man?

dpritchett• 14 years ago

They are less productive than they could be with better office space, not necessarily less productive than everyone who works in private offices.

Peopleware covers this in great detail. There is a section which suggests that quiet office space is required to find the best non obvious solutions.

http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Chapter_12

dredmorbius2• 14 years ago

Don't read everything too literally.

Could be a bit of tongue-in-cheek there.

s-phi-nl• 14 years ago

The OP says that new design will be like their current setup, which (as far as I can tell) seems to attract employees well enough. Any comments from Facebook employees on how the "one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse" works for them currently?

allard• 14 years ago

Would one of the other Pritzker winners fit the company and its functional needs better?

champion2• 14 years ago

Now they'll be as hip as IAC who has 2 buildings designed by Gehry - one in NYC (http://www.iachq.com/interactive/content.html) and West Hollywood on Sunset.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Ask.com, Zwinky, Smiley Central, Popular Screensavers, MyFunCards... but also vimeo, CollegeHumour, match.com... I hate them yet I like them at the same time.

tylermenezes• 14 years ago

tl;dr "your taste is incorrect"

rayiner2• 14 years ago

I love engineering culture, but the one thing that irks me is the positively bizarre ideas about what qualifies as a proper office. It seems to be either drab office parks in the suburbs or weird campuses in the suburbs with weird buildings. What's wrong with renting space in an office tower in an easily accessible downtown and giving people offices with a door that closes? Is it really cheaper to get Frank Gehry to design you a warehouse instead?

flyt• 14 years ago

- Finding space in an urban area of the Bay Area that comfortable can fit 8,000+ people is near impossible

- Tech company employees have a near equal distribution of living in either SF or the south bay, with some folks in the east bay. Having an office in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, or Mountain View is a good compromise on commute time for all of these groups.

- Individual offices require much more space per employee, and isolate people. Facebook has chosen to build offices on open plan, which they see as better for their culture, collaboration, and internal communication.

- Putting an office in a downtown area requires parking, and most of the Bay Area "downtowns" can't cope with 6000+ cars from a single company without major parking expansion.

- Keeping all of this in mind, renting office space in a downtown area would require either purchasing an entire building to fit enough people (if such a building even exists), renovating it, providing parking for 6000+ people, plus all of the other logistical issues that come with working in a downtown area. SF/Bay Area isn't NYC and isn't optimized for non-car commuting.

- Office parks provide many other benefits for companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. They can keep all of their employees (and their NDA-covered communications) absolutely private. They can provide many services at the campus that subtly convince employees to stay at/near the office longer. They can provide large food service areas, keeping employees at the office for lunch/dinner, and keeping their conversations within the businesses walls.

Building out an office park provides easy access to freeways, lots of (free) parking, cheaper utility costs, and easier construction/modification costs. Renovating an office park is going to be less expensive, in general, that completely gutting and renovating a skyscraper.

- At a company the size of Facebook an office park is the only thing that makes sense.

lexande• 14 years ago

- There are certainly high rises in downtown SF that comfortably fit 8000+ people.

- Tech company employees live in the south bay mostly because that's where the tech companies are, not the other way around.

- Reaching SF from the east bay is much easier than reaching Mountain View/Palo Alto from the east bay; in general SF seems like a better compromise for commute access from the whole region.

- Not requiring parking was kind of the OP's point. Put the office somewhere with actually decent transit access, and build no parking at all.

- Skyscrapers work fine for big finance companies even more paranoid about their secrets than Apple and Facebook.

- Plenty of companies larger, smaller or of comparable size to Facebook find that a skyscraper in a real city makes sense.

I think the real answer to the OP's question is mainly that the extreme power of NIMBYs in California makes it nearly impossible to build new tall buildings, so truly urban office space is in very short supply. Indeed, it can be difficult to build much of anything in California that isn't more or less in the middle of nowhere -- Facebook and Google are both practically in the Bay! The development of SoMa may prove something of an exception to this, and it will be interesting to see if many tech companies move into the new office space planned there.

dredmorbius2• 14 years ago

Agreeing with most of lexande's points, only to add: Bay Area populations are essentially tri-centric. There's San Francisco, there's the South Bay, and there's the East Bay. The Peninsula is relatively sparsely populated (single-family detached homes, small apartment complexes), very expensive, exceptionally poorly served by transit, and has horrendous traffic (101, 280 south of Page Mill and north of Burlingame, and various South Bay expressways (Oregon, Lawrence, Middlefield, etc.).

Locating offices in/near San Jose (limited tower availability due to SJO-induced height restrictions), Oakland/Berkeley, San Francisco, and possibly satellites in Walnut Creek or Pleasanton/San Ramon (many more established companies do have datacenters in these areas) would make more sense.

Why do so many companies locate in/near Palo Alto? VC and founders. Headquarter location is most often dictated by the CEO.

Where's Mark's house again?

Frank Gehry Is Designing Facebook’s New Office Building And That’s Sad

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