Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. How we test gear.

Featuring the largest geothermal installation in North America, the campus buildings have solar roofs with a unique textured coating that traps solar rays, plus plenty of other creative energy saving highlights.

When you name something “dragonscale” it will garner plenty of attention. Regardless of the name, the 50,000 photovoltaic panels topping the brand-new 1.1 million square foot Google office building on the 42-acre Bay View campus in California does more than have a catchy name.

The roof offers a “dragonscale solar skin” with a uniquely textured prismatic glass coating to trap additional light and help it generate roughly 40 percent of all the building’s needs. The site uses no natural gas for heating.

This is the first Google complex developed by the tech company—every other location was preexisting. The site next door to NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View has become the largest structure to undertake the Living Building Challenge, which tracks the sustainable performance of the building both during construction and use.

The most striking feature of this quest for an eco-friendly building came from the roof. “That same texture that provides all that function also gives the overlapping panels a unique sparkle that earned it its name dragonscale,” writes Asim Tahir, Google's district and renewable energy lead in a news release. “These panels coupled with the pavilion-like rooflines let us capture the power of the sun from multiple angles.

“Unlike a flat roof, which generates peak power at the same time of the day, our dragonscale solar skin will generate power during an extended amount of daylight hours.” The panels span more than a million square feet and couple with nearby wind power to generate 90 percent renewable power, with the goal of reaching 100 percent.

Additional sustainable features include natural daylight and outdoor views from every desk with automated window shades that open and close throughout the day; a ventilation system using 100 percent outside air instead of the typical 30 percent; toxin-free building materials; and all non-potable water recycled from water captured on site.

The geothermal pile system will help heat and cool the campus with a geoexchange field integrated into the structural system to reduce water needed for cooling by 90 percent, equal to five million gallons annually. It’s the largest geothermal installation in North America.

The interior design focuses on flexibility and collaboration, with informal work areas for employees who are seldom on site, modular desks, and a mix of open and enclosed spaces for groups of employees to gather.

Google worked to bring nature from the outside in with natural lighting and landscaping, so the site also features 17.3 acres of natural area, including rehabilitated Bay Area wetlands.

Roughly five years after breaking ground, Google is welcoming employees onto the Bay View and Charleston East location, which holds two office buildings, an event center, a hotel to house workers on site temporarily, and dragonscale skin sparkling in the sun.