Is the Silicon Valley School of Architecture Emerging?

SAN JOSE, CA—As tech behemoths including Google and Facebook continue to expanded their campuses in the Silicon Valley they are also expanding the common definition of the California tech campus.  With the latest expansions that are proposed or under way, that definition may include what had been described as “a darker green,” or a more specific green construction, says the Silicon Valley Business Journal. An article on the website this week quoted Doug Woods of DPR construction who used the term to describe hyper-environmental strategies. Perhaps it is the flipside of the term “greenwash.”

In February, search giant Google revealed plans for a 1.1 million square foot campus, dubbed “Bay View,” to be located in Mountain View, CA. That news came a few weeks after Facebook announced a new 2,800-person campus across the highway from its current Menlo Park offices. The single-building Campus West will be big enough to house most of Facebook’s engineers under one roof. At the end of February Apple unveiled the lastest new about its “Spaceship,” an outsized new headquarters with ring-like design.