When we saw Steve Jobs on Monday, not many of us expected to see him give another presentation this week. Yesterday, though, he spoke in front of the Cupertino City Council, presenting Apple’s plan to build a new, spaceship-like campus in his hometown.
Apple’s new campus would consist of one circular, four story-high office building that will house 12,000 employees, its own energy center that functions as the campus’ main power source, an auditorium for presentations, some research and development buildings and testing facilities, underground car parking spaces and a fitness center.
The main building will be completely circular and and have a glass front made of massive pieces of curved glass: “There’s not a single straight piece of glass in this building.” In the middle of the circle will be a courtyard where the Apple folks can meet and spend their time during breaks. That is, if they’re not in one of the cafés Jobs plans to include in the building. The main café will be able to feed 3,000 people at the same time.
Apple bought a 100 acre plot from Hewlett Packard in 2010 and already owned 50 acres surrounding that area. The new campus will introduce much more landscaping to the area; 60% more landscaping by putting most of the car-parking underground. Apple also plans to plant more trees in that area and hired an arborist from Stanford University to take the area up to 6,000 trees (from 3,700).
The company hired “some great architects … some of the best in the world” and says that the new campus is “a shot at building the best office building in the world” and that “Architecture students will come here to see this.”
If everything goes according to plan, Apple will move into the new campus in 2015.
Let the new mothership land!
Article and Images Via TechCrunch
