Google Unveils New Mass Timber Office in Sunnyvale, CA

Google recently announced the opening of its new office that highlights the principles the company has long applied to its real estate: creating sustainable spaces that allow Googlers to do their best work. The office is Google’s first building made using mass timber.

1265 Borregas, located in Sunnyvale, California, reflects Google’s latest ways of working. The building features neighborhood spaces designed to support active collaboration, hybrid connections, and heads-down focus work. It also displays the company’s focus on nature-based (or biophilic) workplace design. Google noted that research suggests people are able to focus and do their best work when surrounded by nature, and a building like this one achieves this by keeping the timber exposed inside and outside of the space, while providing natural daylight and sweeping views of the Northern California landscape. Automatic wooden blinds adjust to the sun’s position and minimize glare, and an underfloor air system provides optimal comfort.

Google says that mass timber’s regenerative qualities and its ability to absorb and store carbon over time—a process called sequestration—makes it a sustainable and environmentally friendly choice for building. It also helps decrease carbon emissions that come from the extraction, production, and transportation of traditional building materials. Due to these factors, 1265 Borregas is projected to have 96% fewer embodied carbon emissions than an equivalent steel and concrete structure, when factoring in sequestration over time.

Achieving these climate benefits requires careful attention to the mass timber lifecycle, which is why 100% of the structural mass timber lumber used was procured from responsibly managed forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In addition to the carbon reducing properties of mass timber, 1265 Borregas is also an all-electric, LEED Platinum building, and it includes solar panels on its roof which generate electricity for the building. All of these features work together to advance Google’s goal to achieve net-zero emissions and operate on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030.