For Earth Day 2024, the Rare building Barn X has been unveiled to show how Microsoft and Rare care about our planet while still making games.
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The Rare building Barn X and being environmentally conscious
Obvious statement: we treat our planet very poorly. Pollution has been ravaging Earth because of us and many companies have their own ways of going green to fight it. Case in point: Xbox game developer Rare and Barn X, a building made to help both the environment and its workers.
For Earth Day (April 22), Rare recently revealed Barn X, the new building that they’re now working in in a YouTube video, with more information coming from GamesIndustry.biz and a Microsoft News post. Barn X is located on the Rare campus in Leicestershire and is a new building where Rare employees will be working. It’s a 1,200-meter-squared building and was ecologically designed (i.e., taking into account how Barn X would affect the environment) by LOM, an architecture business, and RKD, an environmental sustainability advisor company. Both worked with Rare and Microsoft to build Barn X to further the latter company’s goal of being carbon-negative by 2030.
It gets electricity by way of a solar farm installed in a nearby field and is LEED GOLD certified (i.e., the building is well-made in terms of being designed with sustainability in mind and has thus scored well in this area). This is Xbox’s first mass timber building in Europe; mass timber was chosen since it can absorb more carbon over time than other materials used for buildings, like steel for example.
Accoya wood was chosen to be the material for the external cladding (protective outer layer) of Barn X, meaning that it’ll last for six decades with no need to varnish it or add a finishing coat of paint. Rare also saves on water usage by utilizing chillers to condensate water (water formed when hot air is brought to a low temperature) and advanced ventilation and cooling services are located on the roof of Barn X.
The barn isn’t in an urban area, but rather a rural location with nature surrounding the entirety of Barn X. Employees aren’t cooped up in the office and can freely frolic outside and enjoy the fresh area and the surrounding areas. Employees can also buy and enjoy delicious Rare Honey, made by the bees that beekeepers tend to on the Barn X grounds (yes, this is real).
It’s also made with Rare employees in mind as Barn X allows workers to work in whatever way they choose, with the building being made to foster creativity and teamwork among employees. Not only that but neurodivergent individuals were also taken into consideration. Workers are allowed to adjust their desk lighting to their liking and there are areas they can go to calm themselves or get some privacy. These employees will be working on Sea of Thieves and Everwild, an upcoming action/adventure game featuring magic and nature being a big part of the game’s identity.
Who are Rare Limited?
Rare is a game studio owned by Xbox. These days, you probably know them best as the developers behind Sea of Thieves, that popular pirate game that was once Xbox exclusive but is now coming to PS5 later this month. That’s not the only game they’ve developed; they also developed Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, Battletoads, and Viva Piñata, to name a few. They were initially an independent game development studio, but Microsoft acquired them more than two decades ago (2002, specifically).
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