Seattletimes has an article on Nintendo's new Green HQ in Redmond.

Nintendo celebrates opening of new headquarters in Redmond

Nintendo of America opened the new headquarters of its North American operations in Redmond Thursday — a gleaming, modern facility...

By Katherine Long

Seattle Times Eastside reporter

BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER

The new Nintendo headquarters in Redmond. The 300,000-square-foot-building is a low-slung, four-story building that replaces one of the company's other three buildings.

Nintendo of America opened the new headquarters of its North American operations in Redmond Thursday — a gleaming, modern facility with all kinds of environmentally friendly touches throughout.

The 300,000-square-foot-building, which houses about 650 employees — roughly half the company's Washington staff — is a low-slung, four-story structure that replaces one of the company's other three buildings constructed in the early 1980s. It's on a 10-acre site on the Nintendo campus, just west of State Route 520.

I found it interesting that Nintendo's President Satoru Iwata thought BIM was unique. Maybe BIM is unique in office space, but everyone has BIM capabilities in data centers.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata flew in from Japan just to celebrate the opening, and talked of the importance and symbolism of the building to his company and to the Redmond community. Gov. Chris Gregoire helped in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Iwata said the building is unusual because the contractor, Turner Construction of Seattle, modeled "every pipe, wire, duct and beam" by computer beforehand. That allowed workers to shave months off the time to construct it.

The Green features called out were.

The 75,000-square-foot roof is literally green — it's planted with a low-growing ground cover called sedum. The plants help moderate the temperature inside and absorb rainwater.

Inside, the floors' central corridors are made of bamboo, considered a "green" material because it grows to maturity quickly. The lights are on motion-detecting sensors and automatically dim when there is an abundance of natural light.

And, air-side economizers for the data center.

The headquarters is home to all of the company's high-powered computers that serve Nintendo's online gaming system and other corporate computer needs. It's cooled primarily by air from out-of-doors, and that is expected to cut the cost of cooling — a major source of energy consumption for computer servers — by as much as 80 percent.

Here is the story of Nintendo being Redmond's first high tech company, not Microsoft.

Redmond Mayor John Marchione was just 17 years old in 1982 when his mother, Doreen, then a member of the Redmond City Council, told him a game company called Nintendo was thinking of relocating to Redmond.

Her teenage son had never heard of it. But then she mentioned Donkey Kong, and the light bulb went on; he'd played the video game at a pizzeria.

"Nintendo gave Redmond its first famous technology company, because at the time Microsoft was in Bellevue," said Marchione. "It's been a great fit, because we're a great community to live in."

There is also electric charging stations getting ready for the release of the Nissan Leaf.

seven electric-vehicle recharging stations in the parking garage, to name a few.

I live in Redmond, drive by Nintendo all the time, and know a few folks at Turner Construction. But, I am not going to keep any hopes up for getting any inside details. As TechFlash reports on the security.

I toured the new headquarters along with other attendees after the ceremony, but the company wouldn't allow photos or video inside, citing security concerns. The exterior shots below are from Nintendo.

Being Green isn't just for the environment, it is good for the morale of the employees who work there.

"Hopefully this new building will help (employees) to be even more creative and productive, and continue to put smiles on the faces of our consumers," said Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, who flew in from Japan for the opening ceremony, attended by Gov. Chris Gregoire and other dignitaries, including Mario and Luigi.