The company was previously located in a cramped series of buildings on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto. The new Facebook headquarters is a massive complex in the foothills near Stanford University, located about 2 miles from downtown.
The development of the office continues to be a work in progress, although the employees are fully moved in. Facebook intends to allow the employees to decide how the building gets used, encouraging people to move furniture, rearranging and transforming the space as they go. The company also has an open policy regarding drawing, writing, and stenciling on the walls.
Conference rooms were named by the employees working on each floor. After a naming contest on this floor ended in a tie between video games and condiments, a decision was reached to create hybrid names--resulting in conference rooms with names like Guitartar Hero.
Other areas have rooms named after countries, and one area's conference rooms are named after characters on the HBO series "The Wire," which ended its run last year.
The Razor RipStik, a two-wheeled skateboard-like scooter with a pivoting deck, has become a popular pastime at Facebook, with employees zipping around the new offices on the concrete floors.
The cafeteria at Facebook churns out meals for the employees all day long, and is also a popular gathering space. Large doors can separate the kitchen and food service area from the dining room, transforming the hall into a large forum for meetings.
Shown are notes scribbled on the glass windows of one of the many well-lighted conference rooms at Facebook's new offices.
A soda machine in the cafeteria, where the trays are also blue, proudly displays the Facebook logo.
In addition to the one centralized kitchen, micro kitchens, with cereal, candy, drinks, and snacks are scattered throughout the building.
Employees have more recreation options and additional outdoor spaces than they had at the old headquarters.
Outdoor eating spaces and basketball courts take advantage of the park-like setting of the new building, which is nestled in the Palo Alto foothills near Page Mill Road and Junipero Serra Boulevard.
This massive crane was left in place as an industrial design feature. Other elements of the former building have also been left and put to use or recycled, like the cabinets in this micro kitchen.
A Lego model of the Facebook logo sits on the desk of a programmer inside the company's new office in Palo Alto, Calif.
The new home to Facebook's 700-plus full-time employees is 137,000 square feet--fewer square feet per employee than many offices, but Facebook likes it this way. Keeping the office open and flowing, yet densely populated instigates a better flow of ideas and community involvement, the company says.
The building was filled with a sea of cubicles before Facebook came in and ripped everything out.
A framed Facebook logo hangs in the lobby of the new building, filled with employees' signatures in celebration of the company's three-year anniversary in February 2007.
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