Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California just got a massive new building called Voyager to join the Endeavor — and yes, those are Star Trek references. The graphics and AI company wants its employees to feel like they’re stepping into the future each day as they arrive for work, and the latest addition to its campus definitely achieves that goal. The 500,000-square-foot Endeavor, completed in 2017, has a stark black-and-white space age look, while the 750,000-square-foot Voyager has a more organic feel loaded with living greenery.
Not many people outside Nvidia’s employees will ever be able to get the full experience, but
Climb to the top of that mountain, and you can gaze out at the interior landscape of seating areas covered with pergolas to shield them from the afternoon sun. White multi-level mezzanines on either side contain more conventional office spaces. Grasses, vines, and shrubs spill out of long built-in planters that cover virtually every surface of this space, including a sizable green wall. Triangular skylights overhead allow daylight to pierce the roof and keep the plants happy.
At the peak of the mountain is a faceted black structure meant to evoke the image of an abstracted volcano. Inside this “caldera” is a long live-edge wooden table for meetings. As you climb down the back, you see more seating areas, conference tables, and an amphitheater where employees watch presentations. Outside the Voyager but beneath the “trellis” (a canopy covered in
It’s an unusual design, but Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang wanted a building that gave every employee a view. All offices face outside windows, and employees can choose to work anywhere on campus, not just at stationary desks. The plans were launched well before the pandemic began, but now that the campus is complete, Nvidia sees it as a worthwhile investment. Sure, a lot of employees are choosing to work from home, but if you want to draw your employees back to the office, a gorgeous design like this one is a great way to do it.
If you haven’t seen
“We worked hard to get the right specifications of glass makeup to allow us the right quality of diffused and soft sunlight in the space,” says Hao Ko, principal and managing director at Gensler. “The final result — where the daylighting is evenly dispersed throughout and evenly experienced by everyone — is a testament to the upfront work we did in design.”
Check out the full tour of the new Voyager building over at
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