Last Updated on March 9, 2021 by Editor Futurescope
The new campus of Apple, called Apple campus 2, will be the future headquarters of the Cupertino. It is still under construction, but thanks to a drone that has been able to fly over the area, help to see the current appearance of the new Apple campus. If everything goes according to plan (and it seems that way), this new headquarters would be operational for this year, so that Apple employees can perform their tasks in such facilities.
Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple Campus 2 project right now in its last stage of works, may no longer be there. But his almost fanatical attention for absolutely all the details that have to adorn the complex continues in the company, and a new report of Reuters is confirmed.
Apple has demanded that everything be perfect, to the millimeter. Meetings have been held with the construction companies only to make clear how the ends of the pipes should be finished. According to plans, the ‘spacecraft’ will be ready by 2017 for the entire team to move from the old campus, also in Cupertino, just 3 miles away. In this video you can see the most recent images, captured by a drone just a few days ago.
The new Apple Campus 2
Of course, the new Apple campus is located in Cupertino (California) just like the previous headquarters and precisely a few kilometers. They have called it “the spaceship” of Apple, and the truth that seems to me a motto of the most successful. Designed by the English architect Norman Foster, it advocates a futuristic aesthetic full of solar panels and with a totally circular structure.
That is, the main building is ring-shaped and is intended to house an impressive park inside. According to rumors, the park would be full of fruit trees such as lemon, orange trees … that would give a colorful and good aroma to Apple’s new headquarters. But not everything is the main building and its indoor park, there will be other mastodon structures that will also make up the new Apple campus 2.
One of these structures will be a gymnasium of almost 10,000 square meters for the own employees of the company. Its roof is considered as the world’s largest one-piece carbon fiber roof. Imagine the magnitude of such a building. Come on, exercising in the gym on the new Apple campus should be a real blast.
Neither should we forget the underground auditorium, such as more than 1,000 areas and the underground parking, which was conceived in this way given the sustainable nature of the campus itself, so that it could be cycled through its bicycle lanes, or stroll in its numerous ways, and thus have space.
Apple Campus 2 is designed to accommodate 13,000 people and is located on 79 hectares of land. As I said before, Apple’s purpose is for Campus 2 to be totally self-sufficient, supplying itself exclusively with renewable energy. They say that if this is not possible, at least they can source these energies at 75% of the total, according to the Popular Science page.
If you have seen the video, you will have noticed that the roof of the main building, that of the ring structure, is covered almost entirely by solar panels. These solar panels will be responsible for providing energy to the building, making it a self-sufficient building.
Some of the requirements that Apple put on the table from the beginning of the project are already quite characteristic of its philosophy: no pipes or ventilation grilles anywhere. For the workers, in the discussions, Apple seemed to ignore that some of the things they were asking for simply could not come true. One of the anonymous people asks to imagine how it can be to build a building with the same level of attention that you dedicate to the design of a smartphone.
The elevator buttons have the shape of the Home button on the iOS devices. The doors are completely smooth and blend with the walls, so Apple engineers are not going to have to slow down when they pass through them. Apple argues that it “might distract” them from their work.
The workers had to deal with 30-page manuals only to learn how to treat the imported timber they received. All the workers had to wear gloves to treat the material. Each of these details involved months of discussion, which in turn paralyzed or delayed other parts of the building.
More examples: Fifteen meetings were held with the Santa Clara Fire Department to confirm that all building evacuation regulations were met despite Apple’s design requirements. Holder Construction and Rudolph & Sletten were in charge of designing the door knob. Apple rejected countless prototypes because it noticed imperfections, to the point where companies had to correct errors in finishes that measured nanometers. They seem to have been dealing with this problem for a year and a half, and it has not yet been resolved.
There are no official figures since Apple did not comment on the cost of the building, but everything points to it oscillates in almost 5 billion euros. A real asshole for the pocket of anyone, but something assumable, it seems, by the company of the bite apple.
The dream of Steve Jobs
All this Pharaonic work came from the head of Steve Jobs, Apple’s acclaimed CEO. They say that Steve called the reputed architect Norman Foster asking for some help, and three weeks later they met in Cupertino. The CEO asked Foster not to treat him as a customer, but as an additional member of his team.
To further secure their trust, Steve led Foster to the Pixar campus in Emeryville, which Jobs designed to keep the entire team under one roof. Foster was delighted with Jobs’s enthusiasm and, as is real at the moment, he accepted the project to design the new Apple Campus 2.
So important was this project for Steve Jobs that, in the last public appearance of the CEO before his death said: “The new Campus 2 will have a beautiful courtyard in the center, and more. It is circular, so the structure will be completely curved. I think we’ll have the best office building in the world. A building, use students of architecture of the future will come here to see … “.
It seems that Jobs’s dream is closer to being fulfilled than ever …
Of all this it is quite clear one thing: when the Campus 2 is finished will be something really worth seeing. Steve Jobs’ latest dream will have come true, and without a doubt Apple will boast much of its new office complex as soon as it opens the door. Too bad there is not going to be a visitor area.
