Facebook has expanded—again. Just three years after moving into its newly constructed Menlo Park, Calif., MPK 20 campus designed by Frank Gehry, FAIA, the tech giant has unveiled a recently completed expansion called MPK 21, also designed by the architect. The new building was completed in under 18 months, according to a press release.
"All the things we learned doing [MPK] 20 prepared us for [MPK] 21," Gehry said in a Facebook video. "We were getting lessons in Facebook culture and we are making a new kind of architecture within that culture."
Designed to achieve LEED Platinum certification, MPK 21 features a 3.6-acre rooftop garden with 200 trees, 1.4 megawatts of solar panels, a water recycling system that will save around 17 million gallons of water each year, and a zigzag shaped roof to allow in more natural light, according to Facebook.
The new building is connected to MPK 20 via an "amphitheater-style courtyard" offering sheltered outdoor meeting and work spaces, and is equipped with five different eateries, open-plan office seating, and a 2,000-person event space.
Over the next year, Facebook plans to construct a path for pedestrians and bicyclists over a nearby expressway and a 2-acre park with event space for community and neighborhood use.
"I feel like we’re not turning our back on the neighborhood," Gehry said in the same video. "We're talking to the architecture of the neighborhood. So it feels like it belongs there."
