Dive Brief:

• Calling Seattle a "huge part" of the company’s future, Facebook unveiled its Frank Gehry-designed Pacific Northwest engineering headquarters at a press conference on Monday, according to GeekWire. See photos of the building here.
• Facebook’s standard unfinished design elements — such as exposed ductwork, concrete floors and plain plywood walls — are featured in the new office, as are "interconnected floors and open collaboration spaces," with room for 2,000 employees.
• The company has grown its Seattle workforce from 500 last year to 1,000 this year, and it has already filed for an expansion of the new office, contingent on a decision to lease additional space, GeekWire reported.

Dive Insight:

Facebook joins other big names in tech, like Google and Amazon, in trying to cash in on the engineering talent pool from the University of Washington and in competing for rival companies’ labor forces.

Google is also growing its Seattle operations, courtesy of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Real Estate. Vulcan is building more than 600,000 square feet of office space for the search engine giant, with 14,000 square feet of retail below and 151 residential units above. When the new space is complete, Google will be close to the 1-million-square-feet mark in Washington. 

Last year, Facebook revealed the design of a new building at its headquarters in Menlo Park, CA, which features a 9-acre green roof with more than 400 trees and a walking trail. The 430,000-square-foot building, also designed by Gehry, is LEED Gold-certified and can fit 2,800 employees.