A Facebook designer has uploaded new photos of Facebook's enormous world domination facility in Menlo Park, California. Boy, are we starting to get creeped out.

The first pictures to emerge of the renovated HQ showed spacious, brightly colored offices bathed in Silicon Valley sunlight. It all looked so happy. But the new gallery from Facebooker Aaron Sittig shows the office's darker side, and not just because it was shot at night; there's something creepy and weird about laser defense systems, overly intimate IT rooms, and factory fetish design. Click the gallery above for seven strange Facebook office elements that show what we're talking about. [via TechCrunch]


Writes Sittig, "The turnstiles use lasers to detect if you walked through without badging in. Lasers!" Another Facebooker responded that they look like something out of Gataca. Right, except the evil corporations in Gataca only pried into your DNA.


Long hallways are a "Facebook tradition," according to the caption on this one. A creepy tradition! Sort of like reading people's private data.


This one is captioned "in the IT help zone." Wait, what? Why does IT help involve comfy chairs and a lamp and a little coffee table? Why does this look like a psychologist's office? Is this where Facebook employees will be talking through their latent Mac and daddy issues? Or maybe something more sinister — interrogations? Shudder. I just wanted to drop off my laptop.


This is the help desk "rollup door." An IT bar is definitely preferable to an IT therapist. But unless the IT guys are wearing black turtlenecks or pouring daiquiris, it still feels a little strange.


"The lines on the ground are supposed to recall factory floor markings." A factory that makes relationships, and advertisements targeted at those relationships. There's nothing like conveyor belt markings to turn a humane office vaguely dystopian.


"Not sure why all the desks have recycling bins rather than trash cans." Because perfect engineers produce no waste. They are that efficient. Also, because they feast on human souls rather than normal food. Human souls have no messy wrappers.


This new conference reservation system will be deployed for the first time at the new campus. It's not just software, it's a platform. "It's supposed to be backed by a fancy facilities database so tools can be built on top of it," Sittig writes. It's also supposed to learn, at a geometric rate. The LCD panel will show conference room availability, future reservations, and the exact time at which FaceConNet becomes self aware.