The Adobe World Headquarters is the

corporate headquarters Corporate headquarters is the part of a corporate structure that deals with important tasks such as strategic planning, corporate communications, taxes, law, books of record, marketing, finance, human resources, and information technology. Corpo ...

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...

, located in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

Towers

The complex consists of three towers: West, East and Almaden. The 18-story, West Tower, first built in 1996, was the sixth tallest in the city of San Jose, and has of office space. The 16-story, East Tower has of office space, and was constructed next to the West Tower in 1998. In 2003, 17-story Almaden Tower was completed adding . The buildings are situated atop of a enclosed parking garage. Both the West and East towers house Adobe's Research and Development and Sales and Marketing departments, while the Almaden Tower houses administration and staff.

Design

The buildings are known for their

green design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...

. The West Tower is listed as an

Energy Star Energy Star (trademarked ''ENERGY STAR'') is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of pr ...

labeled building by the

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon pro ...

. In 2006, all three towers were awarded

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, constructio ...

(LEED) Platinum certification by the

United States Green Building Council The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...

for environmental sustainability.

San Jose Semaphore

Adobe's Almaden Tower is also notable for having the "San Jose Semaphore," an installation consisting of four rotating lights created in 2006 by artist Ben Rubin. The lights rotate every 7.2 seconds according to a code; the pattern was deciphered in 2007 by Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo, who discovered the final message being

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

's '' The Crying of Lot 49''. The duo published a whitepaper chronicling their process of decoding. As of 2012, a new riddle was displayed; the new code was deciphered in 2017 by high school teacher Jimmy Waters from Tennessee. He noticed that a particular sequence in the code might represent an audio silence. Running the full sequence through audio software and changing the pitch, he heard Neil Armstrong's One small step for man speech from the 1969 Apollo moon landing.

References

{{reflist Corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley Skyscraper office buildings in San Jose, California Office buildings completed in 1996 Office buildings completed in 1998 Office buildings completed in 2003 Twin towers