Facebook announced today that it has partnered with OMA to design the masterplan for Willow Campus, a mixed-use neighborhood adjacent to their existing headquarters in Menlo Park.
"The first official step will be the filing of our plan with Menlo Park in July 2017. We will begin more formal conversations with local government officials and community organizations over the course of the review process, which we expect to last approximately two years."—writes John Tenales, VP Global Facilities and Real Estate. "We envision construction will follow in phases, with the first to include the grocery, retail, housing and office completed in early 2021, and subsequent phases will take two years each to complete."
Facebook also plans on building 1,500 units of housing on the campus, 15% of which will be offered at below market rates to mitigate traffic impacts from growth. "These efforts complement our ongoing work to address the issue, including the Catalyst Housing Fund for affordable housing we established in partnership with community groups to fund affordable housing for our local area. The fund was initiated last year with an initial investment of $18.5 million that we hope will grow."
Transportation infrastructure will also be taken into account—the tech giant has already invested tens of millions of dollars to improve US101. "Willow Campus will be an opportunity to catalyze regional transit investment by providing planned density sufficient to support new east-west connections and a future transit center."
"This is only the beginning. Going forward, we plan to continue to work closely with local leaders and community members to ensure Facebook’s presence is a benefit to the community. It’s one we’re lucky to call home."
8 Comments
Each one of the Tech Giants master plans are the same shit design- large BOMA type structures masked by a horrible courts and plazas. Just add green, entourage, and a splash of cafe lights - boom it's place making.
The traditional suburban sprawl masked by false promises and imagery, more crap design, raising rents, and further removal of the working class.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/opinion/sunday/silicon-valley-architecture-campus.html
silicone valley utopian starbucks and/or philz village - don't forget the apple store.
If you strip away the "community" PR posturing, it's still very similar to an Apple campus or a Univeristy campus plan, with all of its walls. The boundaries that exist between the company and public will still be there, and there's no amount of PR speak that can negate that.
But I would at least expect a little architecture from OMA... but we are in an age where the media will blast any design ambition and praise community buzzwords before it is built. Are we really so jaded as to be impressed with this suburban mall? The problems with Apple's new campus are "easily" fixed with some housing and a train link, but you can fix a boring ass design.
Hopefully it is intentionally vague concerning the architecture at this stage in the project and we can see some proper architecture further down the road, fingers crossed.
I doubt there will be any "proper architecture" down the road. These plans make clear the current fear of design. OMA certainly knows its client--FB hired Gehry to design a Walmart. So they gave 'em a strip mall campus. I'm sure the gates will be enforced.
Would have been cool to see a 90s-00s OMA take on Silicon Valley. Funny how in 2017 Foster is progressive and Rem corporate banality.
And then there's reality
http://archinect.com/news/arti...
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