Microsoft Silicon Valley

When Microsoft decided to use mass timber for a new building on their Silicon Valley campus, the company’s commitment to fostering a deeply sustainable workplace overshadowed the challenges posed by the lack of detailed provisions in the building code at the time. This required that the design and engineering team work closely with code officials over the project’s six-year duration. The building features a hybrid design that combines CLT-concrete composite floors with glulam columns, steel beams, and concrete shear walls. The composite floor system allowed the CLT panels to span further, creating a more open interior, and the concrete topping also concealed power and data systems. The two-story mass timber structure was designed to target LEED Platinum, Net Zero Water, and Well Building Standard certifications. The design team estimates that their decision to use mass timber for the new building yielded an estimated structural embodied carbon savings of 36%. Overall, mass timber accounts for more than half the structural components in the three-building, 2,000-employee campus.


Watch a short one-minute video of this project, which was selected as a 2023 Wood Design Awards winner. View the full award gallery here.