Google’s Gradient Canopy office expands the boundaries of sustainable design with flexible workspaces, healthy and reclaimed materials, and public spaces the whole community can enjoy. Gradient Canopy is situated on an 18-acre site adjacent to Charleston Park in the North Bayshore area of Mountain View, CA. A pedestrian and bicycle path, part of the larger North Bayshore Green Loop, weaves around the southern portion of the site.

Gradient Canopy represents one of the first developments where Google led the concept and construction, and provided an opportunity to take human-centered, sustainable design to a new scale. Circular design strategies were also implemented throughout the project, integrating regenerative and restorative materials. The campus’s site design prioritizes native habitat to help reestablish historical ecosystem elements that provide critical support for wildlife and build landscape resilience. Gradient Canopy is also home to the Google Visitor Experience, which is a public destination for everyone — neighbors, visitors, and Googlers. With a variety of programs and spaces designed to foster connection, the public spaces  aim to enrich and enhance a sense of community for everyone who visits.

The Gradient Canopy project team leveraged the Place Petal to restore natural ecosystems and build biodiversity, connect employees to locally grown food, and encourage pedestrian and bicycle circulation.

In the late 1800s, the site was developed into farmland and then sat as a vacant tilled field until construction started on Google’s Gradient Canopy office. Google worked to reestablish ecosystem elements once prevalent in Silicon Valley, such as oak woodlands, willow groves, chaparral, and grasslands. The landscape is composed almost entirely of native species, including approximately 400 native trees, nearly half of which are oak trees that were planted as a part of the Re-Oaking Silicon Valley initiative. The goal was to revive the area’s ecological heritage and bolster the human experience, while creating thriving, functional landscapes for a biodiverse constellation of species.

Google blended over four acres of native pollinator habitat with urban agricultural elements on site to demonstrate how native landscaping and gardening can work together for more resilient local food production. Google’s Farm-to-Table Program, which leads on-site agriculture initiatives and community partnership opportunities, manages two demonstration garden beds that supply produce for Google’s cafes and teaching kitchens. The landscape also features three honey bee boxes onsite, providing education opportunities about honey harvesting and pollination. Googlers and their guests are invited to attend honey harvests and the honey is also used in Google’s employee teaching kitchens. As part of the site design process, ecologists studied how the landscape can support both native bees and non-native honey bees to benefit both native biodiversity and local food production.

To encourage sustainable transportation choices and meet the intent of the Human Powered Living Imperative, Gradient Canopy offers ample secure bike parking as well as other amenities, including helmets for Googlers, on-site bike repair stands, showers, and lockers. Occupants also have access to Google’s “GBike” program, which maintains a fleet of shared bicycles that are readily available on campus and can be used to travel between Google buildings or to reach shuttle stops on campus.

Throughout design and construction, the Gradient Canopy project team vetted every material installed in the building and onsite against the LBC’s Red List, which represents worst-in-class chemicals that negatively impact human and environmental health. In total, the team reviewed more than 8,000 products, working closely with manufacturers to drive transparency in the building industry.

The project team collaborated to achieve the rigorous goals set by the Materials Petal by exploring nontraditional material solutions and building relationships across the industry, from designers to manufacturers to tradespeople. During the vetting process for Gradient Canopy, the project team asked hundreds of manufacturers to provide transparency on the ingredients in their building products and to pursue third-party certification and labels that benefit the broader industry – particularly in areas where material transparency hasn’t been commonplace. For example, the team worked with the manufacturer of the wood doors and frames throughout the building to attain a Declare Label, providing a healthier option on the market for everyone.

Throughout construction, the project team procured over 99% of new lumber from responsibly managed forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), including wood used for temporary purposes and permanently installed lumber. Additionally, the building features more than 30 products from salvaged sources, including reclaimed wood, bike racks, lockers, carpet, and tiles that would have otherwise gone to landfill. 

The team achieved the Net Positive Waste Imperative by creating and adhering to an ambitious Materials Conservation Management Plan, which outlined goals to reduce the environmental impacts from extracting, processing, and disposing of the project’s building materials from design through end-of-life. As of August 2023, the team diverted more than 90% of construction waste from landfills, and a closed-loop wallboard initiative recycled over 550,000 pounds of drywall waste.