Google – Spruce Goose

Spruce Goose is a 319,000 square foot airplane hangar located in the Playa Vista tech neighborhood of Venice, California. Built in 1943, the hangar once housed the Hughes H-4 Hercules, or Spruce Goose, which is an airship designed by Howard Hughes during World War II. The building was leased by Google who planned to use the space as its Los Angeles Headquarters. Google needed a larger production space to expand other portions of the company, create more revenue and per their core values, “create an environment where people can flourish and grow.”

Unfortunately, the building suffered from deferred maintenance and was not up to code. Structural challenges aside, a major concern lay in being able to regulate temperature and maintain 640,000 CFM of conditioned air in a building the size of six football fields. Studies have shown that maintaining proper airflow within a building contributes to the overall wellbeing of a building’s inhabitants and reduces the potential for lost revenues due to sick employees.

Paragon employs the use of pitot-tube technology which is used on technologically advanced aircraft today due to its accuracy and reliability in measuring air speed. Paragon was able to provide this technology for this project via the FE-1500 Airflow Monitoring Stations that were also integrated with Paragon’s FAATS-1000 Fan Array Airflow Totalizing Systems. This “building-within-a-building” will always have a consistent supply of fresh outside air to keep their creative personnel in good health, and this adaptive reuse building project was completed with the original structure fully preserved.