Page 13 - RC19 EDGE Spring All - final-2 - hi res

NVIDIA has been in Santa Clara, California, for the life
of the company—mostly in leased buildings. Land was
purchased in 2007 for a corporate campus; the original
plan was to build three office towers in a fairly typical
real estate development. Then the global financial crisis
hit—and the project was put on hold. Perhaps that was
serendipitous, because when planning resumed, our idea
of what a home campus meant had matured, and the
design took a major turn. Our CEO, Jensen Huang, wanted
a building designed to work for the company, instead of
designed through a real estate portfolio lens.

One major goal was to encourage collaboration. Company
growth often means decisions become decentralized, and
communication can suffer. Tom Allen from MIT had some
interesting research about ways environment influences
collaboration. His studies show that people in the same
building (and same floor) have a high likelihood to bump
into each other regularly, and that act of collision sparks
future collaboration. If they are separated by a floor or
two, it drops down into the 10% range. Separated into
different buildings, it goes to nearly zero.
This headquarters is a very open building that creates
opportunities for those collaborative collisions. Most
people think (at a simple level) that you see someone,
share an idea, and the idea grows from that instant. In
reality, Tom Allen discovered that physical interaction
engendered future collaboration by fostering trust and
relationships.

The building design offers many choices in how to
spend the day; expanding from typical cubicles and
conference rooms to libraries, open teaming and other tools which use material based renderings and physical
spaces, enabling everything from solitary introspection lighting models and ray tracing to show exactly how the
to large group collaboration. The center of the building building will look and behave when completed.
is dedicated to collaborative functions. It contains the
reception area, conference rooms, break rooms, assembly The architect originally wanted a ring of skylights around
areas, and a bar. Employees get the best of both worlds, the center. The instinct to bring light inside was good—but
whether they desire social interaction or very quiet spaces the estimated number of skylights was off. The simulation
where speaking and phones are discouraged. One unique showed that it caused a greenhouse effect of over 100
feature is there are very few signs in the building; an degrees inside. Having this tool ensured that the light
app provides most wayfinding. Other than code-required quality was appropriate; we could manage glare and
signage and evacuation maps, it feels less commercial sightlines. It was very valuable technology because a BMS
and more like a home. would just manage systems—simulations determine their
proper sizing. It had the biggest ROI of all technologies
A New Technology Model we used, and the results were groundbreaking; system
We approached our building the same way our processors renderings versus actual building photographs are
are designed. It must be correct from the beginning to virtually identical. It’s not necessarily an easy process; it’s
avoid expensive errors. Converting a schematic design complicated getting all the major materials plugged in to
into a physical design introduces new behavior, so doing determine the physical characteristics. But when it’s done,
extensive chip simulation beforehand is optimum. the model knows the materials’ properties and simulates
that in as much fidelity as possible. At first the architects
We brought that same model to building construction: were a little skeptical of the value. But once they saw what
simulate the building in advance. We used a number of it can do, they became huge advocates.

11

RC19 EDGE Spring All but Covers - final - 19APR.indd 11 4/19/19 3:16 PM