Facebook’s New HQ to Be Designed by Guggenheim Architect

Facebook must be hurting with its stock price plummeting ever lower. Then again, it did make a ton of money in the IPO and stock price will eventually recover, so it shouldn't affect the company too much. In an effort to lighten the mood a little perhaps, Facebook has announced plans for new buildings near its headquarters to eventually hold some 2,800 employees.

Facebook moved into its new headquarters last year, the old Sun campus. But at the time, it also bought some buildings and land near the campus, but across the highway.

The idea was that it will build new buildings there if it needed to. The most interesting part is that the two sites are connected via an underground tunnel.

Well, it seems it needs to and plans are well underway. Not only that, Facebook tapped famed architect Frank Gehry who designed the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, a building that even someone who knows nothing about architecture or design can appreciate and knows about.

He created plenty of other buildings you've seen but may not know were designed by him.

"At every step of planning the new building, Frank has taken into account our engineering culture. It will be a large, one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse. Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks that can be quickly shuffled around as teams form and break apart around projects," Everett Katigbak, Facebook's Environmental Design Manager who worked with Gehry on the project, wrote.

No one is very surprised about the interior; that has been the way Facebook has done things from the get-go. Everyone from the newest interns to Mark Zuckerberg himself works in one large room.

Granted, there's no room big enough to house all employees, but the idea is that there are very, very few individual offices. The more interesting part though is the exterior.

"We’ve paid just as much attention to the outside as well. The exterior takes into account the local architecture so that it fits in well with its surroundings. We’re planting a ton of trees on the grounds and more on the rooftop garden that spans the entire building," Katigbak wrote. Work will start early next year and the plan is to complete it fast. Still, it's going to be a while before anyone gets to move in.