Facebook’s Frugal Home

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Palo Alto, Calif.—Facebook, the social-networking juggernaut, is one of the fastest-growing companies in history, at least in terms of its customer base.

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Photo by César Rubio; courtesy Studio O + A

Facebook’s New Headquarters: The physical building project is representative in many ways of the philosophy and ethos of the digital world of Facebook.

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Facebook’s layout gives 120 sq. ft. per employee—half the amount given in a typical technology office Space certified sustainable by Palo Alto’s Green-Building Program

The site, which launched in February 2004, reached 100 million users in August of last year and hit the 200 million mark this March. On Sept. 15, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, announced two significant milestones for his company: Facebook was now “cash-flow positive”—and it had acquired its 300 millionth customer.

Such stunning growth—the company now perhaps lags only Google in overall Web influence—is a “problem” any leader would love to have, of course. But it is a problem nevertheless, with one pressing issue being: how to create a suitable home for a company undergoing such a swift and dramatic transformation, from informal startup to an organization now valued at as much as $10 billion, according to some estimates?

Facebook has attempted to answer this challenge with a brand-new headquarters, into which the company’s burgeoning army of more than 750 engineers and operational employees moved four months ago. They came from a smattering of 10 different offices in downtown Palo Alto to a single, consolidated site in the decidedly less urban Stanford Research Park, south of the city’s center.

Facebook Gets Physical

What is perhaps most interesting about the design strategy adopted for the headquarters is that it borrows liberally from what has worked well for the Web site itself: The physical building project is representative in many ways of the philosophy and ethos of the digital world of Facebook.

At its core, Facebook is about connecting people and facilitating interactions and the sharing of ideas. And at its headquarters, an open floorplan, with densely arranged (and easily rearranged) desks, gives the impression of closely knit, but highly fluid communities. And this, in turn, helps foster an environment of communication and “intense” collaboration among the company’s engineers and support staff, says Aaron Sittig, design strategy lead at Facebook.

“It just gives everyone a much better appreciation and awareness of what is going on across the company,” says Sittig, who noted that keeping everyone similarly informed when the workforce was spread out was much more difficult—no matter how often staffers updated their status on their Facebook profile page. 

“A lot more casual conversations happen now between teams, which is a big help,” he says.

And just as it is Facebook’s users who create and control the features of their online pages, so, too, the company wanted to empower its employees to have a substantial say in the look and functionality of their workspace.

The project’s architect, San Francisco-based Studio O + A, interviewed staffers about what they wanted and relied heavily on their input as they tackled the design program for the building Facebook selected: a 1960s-era, 150,000- square-foot building that served as both a factory and materials-research lab for Hewlett-Packard (and which had been vacant for about 7 years before Facebook’s arrival).

One desire clearly expressed by employees (Facebook’s own platform was used to conduct polls about design decisions) was for a green headquarters. And with these sustainable goals in mind, the architects tried to recycle or reuse as much of the existing lab equipment as possible: lab cabinets were repurposed as kitchenettes, for example, and an industrial crane was retrofitted to create a moving conference table.

These and other measures (like low-VOC paints and the recycling of existing carpet) gave the project a green building approval from the City of Palo Alto that is equivalent to a Silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, says Primo Orpilla, principal and co-founder of Studio O + A.

Keeping elements of the lab also help reinforce Facebook’s sense of itself as a social laboratory, adds Orpilla.

And much of the space was left raw and unfinished, allowing workers to customize it both personally and by group. In a direct nod to a Facebook profile page, for instance, a lot of wall space was intentionally left blank so employees could post their own photos and artwork.

This open-ended, employee-centric approach has resulted in a highly eclectic aesthetic, giving the space a “rough and experimental” feeling, according to Sittig. And this has helped overcome some of the hesitation attendant with moving to a less-than-trendy location: “For a lot of people, the idea of an office park was dry and bland, but we tried to create a very free, unfussy space. It doesn’t feel like the office of a large company.”

Down and Dirty

So besides creating a space that encourages collaboration and allows employees to shape their office, what were the other critical objectives for the project?  

Sittig is blunt: Two main goals, he says, were to do the space “as quickly and cheaply as possible.”

And in terms of speed, the start-to-finish time was impressive—and indicative of just how impatient Facebook was to get everyone settled under one roof.
 
Sittig, though normally a lead engineer for Facebook, was the company’s point person on the whirlwind bricks-and-mortar building project, meeting at least once a week with Studio O+A over the compressed design period, which began in October and saw construction start in January.

When it comes to the project’s budget, Facebook’s headquarters project is a textbook example of the difference between the Web 1.0 companies from the turn of this century, which spent huge amounts of their venture capital on expensive furniture and  chic lofts—and then imploded before ever making a dime—and companies such as Facebook that launched after the bubble burst.

Part of Facebook’s Web 2.0 genius is in its cost structure—it features millions and millions of content pages, all created for free by its users. And this focus on economy extends to its physical environment, which is dynamic but not ostentatious, comfortable rather than slick.  

“We didn’t want to over-invest in our space,” says Sittig. “We wanted a building that expresses our priorities. We wanted to focus on functionality—the office should be like a machine. We didn’t want to spend money on embellishments or adornments.”

A crucial component of cost control: Facebook’s layout gives about 120 square feet per employee, about half the amount given to employees in a typical technology office—and almost as dense as a call center. This not only saves on real estate costs, but, in Sittig’s view, is simply a superior way to work: “It’s a better arrangement; we want people to close together.”

The focus on frugality also comes out in the materials of the office environment, from the collected carpet samples to the concrete “streets” between its different areas, where employees are known to zip along on a skateboard or scooter.

“It was not a typical Silicon Valley build out,” says Orpilla. “We wanted to make sure the space didn’t look like Facebook had ‘made it,’ [but rather that] they were still hungry. They realized that when things become too overdesigned, that can send the wrong message. So all of the finishes and carpets read as almost thrift-store [objects] or hand me downs—it’s a very understated and very collegial space. Home furnishings and creature comforts.”

Even the amenities aren’t just frilly extras; they directly contribute to productivity—and make it seem that one need never leave the premises.

A full-service kitchen and cafeteria takes up a fifth of the floor space, offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner to all employees. The long operating hours accommodate the varying working habits of Facebook’s different teams—operations employees, like public relations and customer service, tend to work earlier, with engineers arriving later and staying later. Onsite skateboard and basketball facilities give the project a campus-like feel, appropriate for a company with a large number of twentysomethings.

Engineering the Future

At many high-tech firms, it’s common to give engineers and programmers individual offices where they can focus on coding new features without any distraction. (See HQ’s recent feature on Epic Systems, which gives all employees private offices.)

This works well, says Sittig, at companies where there is a clear computing problem that needs to be solved or well-understood market need that needs to be addressed.

But at Facebook—a company that’s openly uncertain about exactly what the future holds for itself or any social-media site—“we’re innovating into an unknown space,” says Sittig.

“In this sort of environment”--where the site needs to reinvent itself an almost daily basis—“we needed to bring down as many walls as possible. Engineers don’t have as much privacy or control as they do at other tech firms, but we needed them [to be engaged in] a larger conversation. Breaking down walls between people was an important part of this project.”