Facebook's New Headquarters

Okay, not extremely recent news, but still worthy of sharing. Facebook recently upgraded their headquarters to a 150,000 square foot building that previously belonged to Agilent Technologies. Motive for moving was to facilitate interaction and connection, as well as reflection. This is achieved by housing all of the companies employees under one roof and encouraging them to write on and add artwork to unfinished walls.

I recently assisted architectural photographer Benny Chan on location at Cal Tech in Pasadena. We photographed the new Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology. It is a pleasantly attractive building with many LEED / eco enhancements throughout, but the key design element that stood out to me was the "common" spaces for people to gather and discuss ideas. Every hallway had a whiteboard / magnetic wall within close proximity to a low slung table and chairs to encourage the spontaneous sharing and jotting down of ideas. As a "think tank" for Cal Tech's brightest professors for all areas of math and science, it's important to get people together and record ideas and thoughts as often and as quickly as possible. Might this trend progress into other forms of daily life (coffee shops, retail, education?). Encouraging art and conversation to rise from the mundane everyday is just one of many ways we can improve the way we problem solve and learn in the future.

As a recent addition to facebook (please be a fan if you aren't already - Sargeant Photography *wink* :) we're still discovering its potential to share information across multiple platforms quickly and easily. I am glad to find out that facebook treats its work environment with the same open transmission as its widely used (but often regrettably addictive) social networking experiment.

(photo courtesy of NamMix. Full article here )