BillionToOne Union City

To meet the project’s ambitious schedule, the design team from the previous Menlo Park space came together to work on this substantial expansion, leveraging embedded knowledge and working relationships to deliver cohesion and efficiency. Roles were clearly defined, project priorities were identified and served as guideposts when tradeoffs had to be made, and a spirit of problem solving characterized the working process.

Our team’s collaboration extended to the planning department of Union City, which was eager to grow the city’s life science footprint. Involving the local jurisdiction early and communicating often resulted in deeper engagement and a faster timeline for permits. These efforts paid off, with the 90,000-square-foot interior renovation taking twelve months from preliminary sketch to move-in.

BillionToOne Union City earned the Silicon Valley Business Journal Structures Award for Interiors – Small, which celebrates the renovation’s success as a highly-technical yet thoughtfully designed exemplification of BTO’s core values.

Investment in the cultural identity of the space was important to the client’s mission to unite employees in this new location. Custom-designed elements in the form of a helix reflect the company’s core focus on DNA and molecular diagnostics. Environmental graphics and unique brand-focused elements are  focused in common areas like the building’s expansive lobby, where a DNA-inspired mural reaches upward to new heights in tandem with a playful light installation, and a projection screen with interactive content is positioned along the path of travel. On the exterior, fabricated metal panels—perforated in a spiral pattern reminiscent of a DNA strand—clad prominent columns at the building’s corners, allowing a peek into the groundbreaking scientific work happening within. 

Supporting and building on BillionToOne’s internal culture, the design pairs amenity and efficiency—a break room can also serve as an all-hands presentation space. Black-out shades on the windows double as a large projection screen for company gatherings. Custom designed shelving accommodates a staff lunch tradition of ordering in, streamlining food delivery and allowing more time for socializing.

BillionToOne’s Union City headquarters demonstrates the power of a strong designer-client collaboration to scale a highly technical, customized life science facility in record time to accommodate the expansion of a fast-growing company lauded as Silicon Valley’s latest unicorn. Responding to increased volume and demand for their commercialized fetal antigen NIPT product, UNITY, the new headquarters enables BillionToOne to efficiently scale their sample processing ability by 3-4x. “Our 5 year goal was to help 1 million patients and their doctors make confident medical decisions and remove that fear of the unknown. We have been scaling very quickly, growing 2x and 3x year over year, and as we continue to grow, this facility was a really important part of meeting that demand,” said Oguzhan Atay, BillionToOne’s CEO.