Google’s Bay View campus opens to Googlers: Here's how it looks like

Google has officially opened its Bay View campus in Silicon Valley, California, for Googlers. Totalling 1.1 million square feet across three buildings, the new campus is fully electric and will be one of the company's first campuses to operate on carbon-free energy 90% of the time.

"This marks the first time we developed one of our own major campuses, and the process gave us the chance to rethink the very idea of an office. Our goal was to push the limits on what an office building could be - not just for the benefit of Googlers, but for the wider community and industry," David Radcliffe, Google's vice president of real estate & workplace services, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

The campus incorporates biophilic design principles like greenery, natural daylight and outdoor views from every desk to improve the health and wellbeing of those inside.

"After talking to Googlers about what they need from a workplace, we found that they're happy, productive and creative when they come together in teams, but need spaces that are buffered from sound and movement to get deep-focus work done," said Radcliffe.

The Bay View campus is powered by a first-of-its-kind dragonscale solar skin, which generates 40% of its annual electricity, and nearby wind farms, allowing it to operate on carbon-free energy 90% of the time.

The new Google campus also houses the largest geothermal pile system in North America - estimated to reduce carbon emissions by almost 50% and water used for cooling by 90%.

Bay View was designed to evolve as the way we work changes, said Radcliffe, adding that the flexible nature of the focus and collaboration spaces at Bay View is just one way to accommodate these changes.

Meanwhile, Google's Charleston East project is also in the final phase of construction. Situated on an 18-acre site in the North Bayshore area of Mountain View and adjacent to Charleston Park, it contains 590,000 square feet of occupiable space.

Both Bay View and Charleston East are among the largest buildings in the world to pursue LEED-NC v4 Platinum as well as the largest to pursue elements of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification.