Apple's got so big that it is building a new campus to compliment its campus at One Infinite Loop. Here are 46 facts about the new Apple campus, which is referred to by many as the 'Spaceship Campus' due to its flying saucer-like design.
How big is Apple's new campus?
1. The new Apple Campus will be set in a 2.8 million-square-foot area.
2. That's an 176-acre site.
3. It will house over 13,000 Apple employees in the one building.
4. The building is more than a mile around.
5. There will be 300,000 square feet of research facilities and underground parking.
6. In May 2014, Apple leased 290,000 square feet of new office space in Sunnyvale known as Sunnyvale Crossing. It is thought that this additional space composes of seven buildings and will provide room for around 1,450 workers. It is located near to the new 'Spaceship' campus as well as the current 'Infinite Loop' campus.
Watch this video of Apple's presentation about the new campus to the City of Cupertino.
New Apple Campus design
7. The four-story circular structure will have huge walls of glass that will allow employees to look out from both sides of the ring.
8. Peter Arbour, an architect for Seele, the company that makes the glass staircases in Apple stores around the world, told Bloomberg: “It is something like 6 kilometres of glass”.
9. British firm Foster+Partners have been appointed as the architects for this colossal building. Previous projects include Wembley Stadium, Canary Wharf Underground Station, Stansted Airport, London’s Millenium Bridge, HSBC HQ at Canary Wharf, the Maclaren Technology Centre and the Heast Tower in New York.
10. In an interview with Architectural Record, Forster+Partners Founder and Chairman Norman Foster explained how he was inspired by the idea of a London square, where houses surround a park. This eventually evolved into the circular design surrounds the large outdoor park.
11. Foster reveals in the video created to promote the Campus 2 project to the City of Cupertino's planning commission (watch it above) that the in the original plans there was no circular 'spaceship' structure. Foster said: "It didn't start as a circular building, it really grew into that. So the idea of one building with a great park was really borne out of a very intensive process."
12. Despite aiming to be self- sufficient and earth friendly, the range of materials used in the construction will without a doubt be of the top of the line. “As with Apple’s products, Jobs wanted no seam, gap or paintbrush stroke showing; every wall, floor and even ceiling is to be polished to a supernatural smoothness. All of the interior wood was to be harvested from a specific species of maple, and only finer quality “heartwood” at the centre of the trees would be used”, an insider told Business Week.
13. To combat the size of the building the sections have been broken up with cafes, lobbies, and entrances.
14. You can move vertically in the building as well as horizontally.
15. A significant segment of the building is the restaurant, which opens up to the landscape.
16. The car park is buried below the landscape so there are no rows of parked cars to spoil the view.
17. A new video made by Technology Integration Services was created based on publicly available information about Apple Campus 2; the company has no affiliation with Apple. The video depicts additional buildings along with the main 'spaceship' building and gives an indication of how vast the greenery will be in the area. A fountain can be seen in the middle of the campus along with a performance stage, presumably for presentations to Apple employees. Watch the video here.
18. The Apple Campus 2 site is currently being prepped for foundation work with the first walls having been erected, running around the perimeter of where the main building will stand. It is thought that construction crews will soon pour the foundation into this area.
19. Phase two of the project, which includes the creation of research & development buildings and other secondary buildings for meetings and presentations, requires demolition to clear land along N. Tantau Avenue and has not yet taken place. Current residents, Panasonic, are based opposite the site. Panasonic's response to Apple's new headquarters is not known although tensions could run high between the neighbouring businesses should Apple ever branch out into the TV market.
How much input did Steve Jobs have in the new campus
20. According to Norman Foster, Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs requested that he be considered a part of the team rather than the client.
21. Jobs wanted the new campus to reflect the Californian landscapes from his childhood, Foster claims in the video.
22. Apple's senior arborist David Muffly reveals in the video that part of Apple's plan was to bring California back to Cupertino.
23. Steve Jobs was inspired by a large space known as the Main Quad on the Stanford campus.
When will Apple's new campus be ready?
24. Although the project was intended to be ready by mid-2015, set backs have put the plans behind schedule. Apple plans to move into the main structure by 2016 whilst other secondary buildings will be completed on a rolling basis.
How environmentally friendly will the new Apple campus be?
25. The new Apple Campus will aim at being self-sufficient. Most of the power for the facilities will come from an “on-site low carbon Central Plant”, according to an Apple Insider report.
26. After revisions to the original plan, Apple has shown that is will be able to complete the project without having to remove any dirt from the area.
27. The structure will be outfitted with solar panels around the top of the building. It will run mostly off the Cupertino power grid but will use it as a backup electrical supply.
28. 7,000 trees will surround the campus. Apple has hired a leading arborist from Stanford University to help landscape the area and restore some of the indigenous plant life, including apricot orchards.
29. All landscaping is intended to make the area look very park-like. It will include jogging paths and walking trails around the building.
30. The former HP campus on which Apple's Campus 2 is being built was covered in buildings, concrete parking lots and non-indigenous decorative trees ill-suited to the specific Pacific climate. The strongest of the trees will be replanted and augmented with sturdy species that will flourish to create large open expanses of greenery.
31. Apple VP of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson reiterates that 80 percent of the site will be so-called "green space," while the main building will go without air conditioning or heating for 75 percent of the year thanks to natural ventilation. Further, 100 percent of the campus' energy will be sourced from renewable assets like solar power and bio fuels.
32. Foster compared the new Apple campus to an airport, telling Architectural Review: "If you compare these very large buildings in terms of the area enclosed by the amount of external wall, they're very efficient, so they consume less energy. They're also a better experience, because you're not leaving one terminal, going outside, onto a road, or into a tunnel, or onto a train to get to another terminal. You're not worrying about what the hell is happening to your bags as they leave one place and you hope that they end up in the other place. Overall, it's a better experience – it's more sustainable, it's more economic. And, architecturally, it's more interesting. The same is true with the very large Apple building."
How much will the new Apple campus cost?
33. The budget for the new spaceship-like headquarters has ballooned from less than $3 billion in 2011 to almost $5 billion.
34. Not everyone is happy. It has been reported that angry shareholders have attacked the $5 billion project labeling wildly extravagant.
35. According to Bloomberg, although $1 billion is less than 1% of Apple’s cash reserves, shareholders have complained that too much is being spent on this ginormous project while nothing is being handed back to stockholders.
What facilities will there be at the new Apple campus
36. The main building will include a wellness center. The fitness center will probably cater for needs of the entire Apple community in Silicon Valley, which is around 20,000.
37. The headquarters will be fitted with a new 1000- seat underground auditorium which will allow Apple to have presentations in the same building, instead of having to go to San Francisco every time.
38. The new underground parking facilities will increase the number of spaces from 10,500 to 14,200.
39. Due to its underground location, this will triple the amount of landscaped area in the campus.
40. Despite rumors and an unsuccessful campaign by David Greelish, Apple will not open a museum at the new HQ. As Phil Schiller explained, Apple is “focused on inventing the future, not celebrating the past”.
41. There will be miles of jogging and cycling trails.
42. 1000 bikes will be kept on the site and available to staff to get around the campus.
43. A new Caffè Macs employee cafeteria has recently opened at Apple's Cupertino campus. Designed solely for Apple employee use, the general public is not allowed entry to the building, having been designed as an area for Apple employees to discuss work in a secure and private area. The cafeteria, built over two years and in a 21,468 square foot space, has been designed by Foster + Partners, the same agency responsible for Campus 2. The building’s kitchen, server and espresso bar have been billed as smaller versions of the ones that will feature at Campus 2, enabling the food service team to test the design and layout of the kitchen and serving areas on a smaller scale. The cafeteria at Apple Campus 2 is expected to be eight times larger and span two floors.
The structure of Caffè Macs Alves is reminiscent of design plans for the new campus, containing high ceilings, stonewalls, glass façade and terrazzo floors, all of which are design signatures of Apple Campus 2.
The structure of Caffè Macs Alves is reminiscent of design plans for the new campus, containing high ceilings, stonewalls, glass façade and terrazzo floors, all of which are design signatures of Apple Campus 2.
What will happen to the old Infinite Loop Apple HQ?
44. Even with this new colossal project opening in 2016, Apple has no plans to destroy its existing headquarters building located at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino.
What used to be on the site?
45. It is located on the former Hewlett Packard campus.
46. The local area of Cupertino has missed revenues from Hewlett Packard since they left the site however the construction of Apple Campus 2 has lead to the City Council's budget being boosted by an extra $30.6 million. $8 million of the extra revenue will be used to pay off the city retiree medical unfunded liability, with another $8.3 million being used to fund pavement maintenance. The remaining extra funding will be transferred into the city's capital reserve.
