A few years ago, as Google started preparing to build two enormous, over-the-top campuses in Silicon Valley—totaling 1.6 million square feet and costing an unspecified sum—the corporation decided to dip its toes in the water with a much smaller, restrained project nearby. The first ground-up building for the search engine company, Google at 1212 Bordeaux in Sunnyvale, California, is not a prototype for either of the forthcoming complexes—a tent-like extravaganza by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Heatherwick Studio, and a terraced facility BIG is designing independently. Instead, the 100,000-square-foot office by Charlottesville, Virginia–based Parabola Architecture is testing various strategies for optimizing fundamentals like daylighting, air quality, and acoustics to help employees focus and be productive in an open-plan space. For the most part, the moves are familiar and time-tested options rather than innovative technologies; it is the overall commitment to improving occupant comfort that sets the building apart. “This is essentially a giant mockup that people can interact with, allowing us to collect data on what is and isn’t working,” says Josh Portner, district development executive at Google.

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