Google Pittsburgh: Where the Past Meets Future

As you walk from the Cheez-It meeting space to the Nilla Wafers conference room, you could almost forget that the sprawling, 40,000 square-foot industrial space of Google Pittsburgh is no longer a Nabisco Factory.

Things have definitely changed around 6452 Penn Ave.

The huge cookie-dough mixer that Nabisco left behind is now surrounded by grown-up toys—a foosball table, a pool table and more—brought here to keep genius minds humming when they need a break from staring at pixilated screens. Look down: Along the floor, scorch marks are evidence that this space was once filled with roaring ovens. Look up: Suspended along the ceiling, miles of multicolored wires carry massive amounts of digital information.
 

Google’s new space at Bakery Square feels like an odd blend of Silicon Valley startup and Pittsburgh monument. We are “blending the industrial past into the future’s technology,” says Kamal Nigam, engineering manager at the Pittsburgh office. His employees seem to agree.

“We call ourselves engineers, but to put it another way, we’re typists,” says Dominic Widdows, an engineer who relocated here from California six years ago. The Bakery Square space, he says, “helps me keep in touch with ‘What is engineering beyond this keyboard and this screen?’"

Employees helped plan the space. The final design, created by local architecture firm Strada, has several little nooks for talking or working quietly, including diner-type booths and a small, smokestack-shaped meeting room. Andrew Moore, who runs the office, requested a bit of open floor space—he thinks best lying on the carpet.

Google’s offices around the country are filled with quirky touches, including slides, plastic ball pits, a life-size dinosaur replica and a traditional Chandler & Price letterpress. There are treadmills attached to computers for those who prefer working while walking. There are scooters, too, and even a massage room where a visiting masseuse takes appointments for Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Free meals are served, and a big kitchen is stocked with a huge array of snacks and drinks (employees talk about gaining “the Google 15” in their first year).

But geniuses like to out-do each other. Office manager Cathy Serventi says the Google mantra of “think of something better” has extended to office design. So the Pittsburgh office has an enormous trapeze net suspended from the ceiling where employees can work if they wish.

It’s hard to believe these perks aren’t distracting. But, according to Servanti, employees are so passionate about their work that they don’t need to be pushed back to their desks. They also say that social interaction at the foosball table or in the trapeze net fosters conversations among members of different engineering teams. Those casual chats often spark important ideas and bring solutions to the toughest computing problems.

That’s a great excuse for having lots of beach chairs and an unlimited supply of chocolate in your office.