Silicon Valley style has arrived in downtown Toronto.

Google Canada unveiled its new Toronto office yesterday, a place designed by HOK, a global firm with Toronto-based offices. The five-floor, 89,000-square-foot space on Richmond St. was designed based on ideas from hundreds of staff members — known as Googlers

When Google opened its first Toronto office 11 years ago, the number of staff could “fit in a phone booth,” said Chris O’Neill, managing director of Google Canada. Now with 400 staff, the new space opened at the beginning of October to accommodate the needs of the company’s expansion in Canada.

MORE:Google Doodles

The Toronto office is the headquarters of advertising sales for all of Canada, among a host of other things. The tech juggernaut also has offices in Ottawa, Montreal and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Here are eight things that make this office a dream come true for workers:

The café and micro kitchens: With the large kitchen and chefs preparing breakfast and lunch for hungry Googlers, staff can leave paper bag lunches at home. The menu changes daily (Tuesday was fresh lobster).

The music rooms: A soundproof room allows employees to pick up a guitar and perfect the solo on their favourite song — or, if they feel like it, practice rolls and double-kicks on the full drum set. It’s a place for Googlers to explore creativity. If instruments aren’t their thing, they can head to the DJ room to spin records (Google provides a limited selection, but staffers can bring their own vinyl) or plug in an iPod to mix songs.

Fishing-wire carpet (and other environmental initiatives): The carpets, made from recycled material, are a symbol of one of Google’s core values: environmental responsibility. Workers are also surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, cork floors, recycled car lights there to brighten up board rooms — not to mention 100 per cent renewable energy to power the place. The office is working toward becoming LEED Gold certified. Oh, and a large section of the office walls is made from reclaimed wood.

The hidden room: It’s like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story. Find the right book in the shelf and open the door into the secret lounge. With a fireplace and comfy chairs — and a Scrabble board — one can hide away for some alone time or take on a co-worker in a friendly board game.

The blender bike: Staff can put in a favourite mix of fruit and milk or juice into a blender mounted on the back of the bike; pedal for a few minutes and voila, they’ve create a perfectly blended fruit smoothie courtesy of their own physical energy.

Luxurious lounges: Boardroom meeting space is available in the Google office, but staff can also choose to sit in a circle underneath a tent and talk business strategy. The tent room is just one unique lounge space used for meetings. If they need to make a phone call, Googlers can step into one of the rooms named after Canadian musicians. Stompin’ Tom Connors’ room has one of his songs pasted on the wall in Morse code. Googlers said they’ve yet to crack the code.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Games galore: Scattered throughout the office are a number of games for Googlers to play while taking a break. There’s ping pong, billiards, darts, even arcade-style Pac-Man.

The great Canadian design (and brain exercise art): Designed to showcase Canada and Toronto, the office walls are covered with Canadiana made by Canadian artists and designers; a Rubik’s Cube Android logo, for instance, is made by Toronto-based Cubeworks. Boardrooms are named after locations around the city selected by staff. If you need a one-on-one meeting, head to Sam the Record Man or High Park. Binary code art in certain rooms contains messages for coders to decipher, one being the company’s mission statement.

Read more about: