The BBC screened a documentary entitled ‘Inside Facebook: Zuckerberg’s $100 Billion Dollar Gamble’ in the latter part of 2011 which included an interview with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as well as a detailed look at many important aspects, but also such places as the house he and his friends used to rent. There was also a feature taking a look behind the scenes at the wonderfully-designed California office where Zuckerberg and his many employees work from.

Not your usual office
What viewers saw in the BBC documentary with regard to the Californian base for Facebook was an office that was most certainly out of the ordinary and definitely in keeping with the workplace you would expect of such a global phenomenon. Facebook was launched in February 2004 and since then the social networking utility has attracted over 950 million active users. The setting for the global headquarters is the California office in Menlo Park which actually used to be the base for the former computer company Sun Microsystems, and there have been some extremely intriguing features added to this office since Facebook moved onto the premises.

Quirky interior
The area is one million square feet in size and inside has a high number of what are known as ‘cozies’, these are small personal booths built for conference purposes. The features of the interior include many interesting and slightly leftfield designs and illustrations on the walls including a ‘Facebook wall’, in reference to the one you find on Facebook itself, on which numerous contributions have been added by people.

A mix of industry and innovation
The sight of the cafeteria is one to behold and it is perhaps slightly like an airport check-in lounge in its appearance and layout. There is also a rustic feel with some of the materials on show but there are certain sights like staff on two-wheeled casterboards that bring the theme right up to date. The whole concept behind the design was to reflect the ideas that Facebook sees as its culture, and the surroundings clearly encourage optimum levels of creativity. This idea of a ‘creative space’ in which to work has grown significantly as a popular notion for business properties as they look at it as a factor to increase the attraction of staying in the office. The Facebook office prides itself on this innovative ideology while at the same time maintaining the traditional values to make it a successful office environment – a fantastic mix if you can get the balance right.

Article written by Nina Rogers representing http://www.mjflood.ie/ , a prominent supplier of office supplies, furniture and interior, based in Dublin but with a whole host of branches across Ireland.