“We’re taking what we’ve already started-intelligent workspaces, sustainable systems-and moving it to the next level,” Ford said.

Innovative, accessible design-informed by years of research, input, and testing around employees’ needs and work styles, as well as by Microsoft’s deep roots in the community-will shape the project’s interior, exterior, and underground spaces. “We are building the kind of space we need for the future … for the employees here now and the eighth graders who will be here one day.” The walk from the center of one side of campus to the center of the other will take about 7 minutes after the renovation, compared to up to 22 minutes today. The project will more seamlessly connect both halves of the campus, divided by State Route 520, via a foot- and bicycle-only bridge that will link Microsoft, the Redmond Technology transit station where light rail is slated to arrive in six years, and the nearby regional trail. After older buildings are taken down and new ones are added, Microsoft’s presence in the Seattle area will go from 125 buildings today to 131 buildings.

The headquarters renovation is set to break ground in fall 2018 and will take from five to seven years to complete. Designers say that these are the transformations that will bridge where we are with where we’re going. These are the types of spaces that will define the Microsoft headquarters modernization and will infuse other building and campus investments coming up in Ireland, India, Israel, Silicon Valley, Brazil, and elsewhere. Impromptu conversations, encouraged by communal work “neighborhoods,” can lead to innovation better productivity and faster, more agile development. Focus and privacy can be found in a soundproof drop-in phone booth or upholstered alcove inspiration (and, according to research, employee health) can soar in a light-filled atrium, cushy couches providing a welcome landing space for team touchdowns. Today, however, the low-ceilinged, many-hallwayed buildings can feel more like a series of mazes, where it’s easy to drift in circles.īut as mindsets and culture have transformed, so has the thinking about how we want to work, create, and connect.

Iconic in their own way, the 1980s-era, X-shaped buildings were designed to offer employees plenty of natural light and nearly identical offices. The launchpad for the modernization, which will add 2.5 million square feet of new office space to the 500-acre headquarters, is the cluster of buildings at the heart of the original Microsoft campus.

Microsoft office draw space