Work Meets Nature on the 10x Genomics Campus

presented by Landscape Forms

Biotech firm 10x Genomics is on a meteoric rise, growing from a San Francisco Bay Area garage start-up to a 1,200-plus-person firm in just the last decade. Supporting the company as they design and manufacture the gene sequencing technology that’s opening new doors in scientific discovery, a brand new campus in Pleasanton, CA welcomes even further growth and expansion.

Conceived as a “science village set within a park,” the campus landscape plan drafted by global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK centers around offering employees productive and gratifying opportunities to work outside.

“The vision was to really embrace and enhance the outdoor working environment, creating these arrival plazas where employees can have meetings, conversations, and do small group work,” describes Benjamin Kuchinsky, Senior Landscape Architect at HOK. “People on this campus work hard and they work long, so it was important for us to balance the need for efficient, functional outdoor workspaces with the health and wellbeing benefits of offering a connection to nature.”

A carefully curated collection of Landscape Forms elements creates a variety of welcoming work and respite settings. All across the campus, lining the paths, illuminating the plazas, and welcoming evening gatherings, Motive area lights play a leading role in lending the site a clean, modern yet friendly and welcoming identity. Compositions of Parallel 42 and Generation 50 benches offer places to have lunch, a casual conversation, and a connection to nature, while a customized Upfit structure—which Kuchinsky describes as the space’s “anchor”—brings the office outside.

“We’ve worked with Landscape Forms on a number of projects, and we love the versatility of their products and the way they’re engineered for comfort and purpose,” he says. “Beautiful benches are nice for relaxing and enjoying the weather, but we also needed spaces where people could reliably set up a laptop and have a real, productive meeting.”

Right in Upfit’s wheelhouse, the productive outdoor workspace is framed in custom Ipe wood slatted panels and sheltered by the solution’s weather-sensing automated roof louvers. Inside, inline bar-height seating joins Chipman stools and GO OutdoorTables with integrated device charging to ensure the space is always ready for the task at hand.

“I’ve been attracted to Upfit from the moment I saw what it enabled us to do. As landscape architects, we can do totally custom things, but with budget and time constraints, that’s not always realistic,” Kuchinsky continues. “Being able to specify so many options for different table heights, different seating, different materials, different panels, different openings and levels of privacy—it’s really beneficial to have an option that enables you to do something custom without being completely bespoke.”

Published on December 7, 2023