Facebook's new digs to be designed by starchitect Gehry

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Facebook is signing up no less than Frank Gehry to design its new campus. The social network is looking to expand its current  campus, formerly the HQ of Sun Microsystems in Menlo Park, California. The new development is an expansion and will be an enormous one room, open-concept warehouse designed  for Facebooks engineers who make up most of its 3500 staff.

Gehry is famed for bold, innovative and even controversial designs such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, spain the Stata Centre in MIT, Boston and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, California. For Facebook, Gehry plans are based on, "a community-like environment that will host a park atmosphere, where a grass roof with a variety of native trees will become accessible by foot, the new development will connect to the current east headquarters via a tunnel, where the path will create a transit route for cyclists and pedestrians walking beneath the bay-front expressway." Says a report on Designboom.com.

The building is expected to extend to 435,600 sq feet and be designed as an open space like a warehouse which is condusive to collaboration and consulation among the staff. Bulding will commence in 2013.