Adobe Founders Tower

Using an inside out approach, the design team conceptualized a workplace that is created for adaptation, an enhanced human experience, and resilience. The first all-electric building of its scale in Silicon Valley, it adds 18 stories and 1.25 million square feet to a prominent tech company’s corporate headquarters in San Jose, demonstrating a commitment to the city and surrounding community.  

The project embodies the company’s dedication to creativity, sustainability, and inclusivity, and takes a distinctive approach to the changing work environment post-pandemic. A raised floor system and flexible, multi-use spaces respond to shifting technologies and future ways of working, enabling easy reconfiguration without demolition. Furthering the company’s sustainability efforts, key efficiency strategies like a high-performance envelope, low lighting power, and close controlled HVAC systems are estimated to reduce the building’s energy use by 40% compared to a baseline building, minimizing its carbon footprint and ensuring future energy solutions can be easily incorporated. To help build a connection with the community, highly transparent areas of the parametrically derived glass façade bring out the color and activity of the building’s interior, allowing the public to see into workspaces and better understand the company’s thriving culture. Unique art installations designed by local artists adorn the building as an homage to the rich diversity of San Jose. 

As companies look to reinvent the office, this building is a model for the future workplace — a shared, connected, adaptive destination where the future of tech, creativity, and business is cultivated.