Behold Nvidia's Giant New Voyager Building

Nvidia's Voyager building is designed to be a place where employees are eager to show up for work. Immediately after entering the 750,000-square-foot building at the graphics and AI chipmaker's Santa Clara, California, campus, you see its "base camp" a reception area. It's at the foot of the darker "mountain" that climbs upward behind it.

The walkway leading from Nvidia's older Endeavor building to the newer Voyager is lined with trees and shaded by solar panels on aerial structures called the "trellis."

The towering glass front of Nvidia's Voyager building reflects the "trellis" outdoors that provides shade to the front of the building.

The central part of Voyager is the "mountain," where employees can meet, work and gaze at the view. A stairway leads up the mountain's front face, and "valleys" to either side separate it from more conventional offices.

In Nvidia's Voyager building, walls covered with native plants give the mountain a more organic look, freshen the air and absorb sound.

Nvidia's Santa Clara headquarters includes its 500,000-square-foot Endeavor building, left, and newer 750,000-square-foot Voyager to the right. A private walkway connects Endeavor to other Nvidia buildings out of view to the right.

From the top of the Nvidia Voyager building's mountain, you can see the stairway, the "base camp" reception area and the building's glass front.

Far overhead in Nvidia's Voyager building is a roof pierced with many triangular skylights. The geometrical patterns are a nod to the wireframes at the heart of Nvidia's computer graphics business, but the effect is used sparingly compared with the overwhelmingly polygonal styling of Nvidia's earlier Endeavor building next door.

"Valleys" divide the mountain, right, from more conventional offices while allowing natural light to penetrate to the ground floor. Booths and tables are open for employees to meet or eat lunch.

Atop the Voyager building's mountain is a multifaceted black structure reminiscent of a basalt from an extinct volcano. Nvidia had to reshape it several times to get the facets to show properly.

The back of Voyager features an amphitheater where employees can watch events like company meetings.

A long live-edge table is at the center of a cozy recessed area called the caldera near the top of the mountain in Nvidia's Voyager building. In real-world geophysics, a caldera is a sunken crater left after an eruption empties a volcano's magma chamber.

This view looks upward from the stage area of the amphitheater up the back of the "mountain" in Nvidia's Voyager building.

This almost subterranean channel tunnels through the mountain like a lava tube. 

Creeping plants are trained to grow up wires to provide a green backdrop for events held on the back of the mountain area of Nvidia's Voyager building.

Nvidia's Voyager building uses different colors to distinguish the dark mountain from the lighter conventional offices on the other side of the "valley."

Unusual lighting gives otherwise ordinary corridors a fresh look deep beneath the mountain at the center of Nvidia's Voyager building.

Outside Nvidia's Voyager building are elevated "bird nests" where people can work and meet.

Outside Nvidia's Voyager building is the "trellis," a canopy covered with solar panels. They're packed more thickly to the right to shade the front glass facade of the building. The panels turned out to be more susceptible to winds than expected, requiring stronger supports.

Four acres of garden separate Nvidia's Voyager building, right, from the earlier Endeavor to the left.

Voyager's "bird nests" are equipped with tables, benches and Wi-Fi.

A stairway leads up the front face of the "mountain" at the center of Nvidia's Voyager building in Santa Clara, California.