Giant Glass Doors and 755-Foot-Tunnel in Apple’s Recently Opened Spaceship-like Headquarters: Now, that Apple’s new anticipated headquarters has finally opened in Cupertino, California, journalist Steven Levy has taken a tour through the new building and reported it in detail to readers through an article that was published on WIRED. Levy’s tour of Apple Park was guided by Apple Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive and Head of facilities Dan Whisenunt.
The new headquarters which looks “like a spaceship landed”, as Jobs had described it before his passing, was designed by Foster + Partners, covering a total area of 75 acres. It includes facilities like a 100,000-square-foot Wellness Center, a two-story yoga room, and a hilltop theater. It, also, features a white-tiled 755-foot entrance tunnel and 4-storey giant glass doors that open to the café. Housing these facilities and all 12,000 employees in one building, instead of the usual office parks, was Steve Job’s idea of creating “the best office building in the world.”
via wired.com – photography: Dan Winters
The construction of the ring-shaped Apple Park took a duration of 8 years. The building comprises the world’s most giant glass curved panels, reaching up to 45-foot tall. Foster + Partners cooperated with Seele Group for the construction of the dominantly giant glass façades. The building was, also, planned to run, completely, on sustainable energy which is sourced from the 805,000 sqft of solar arrays which cover the top of the building, and it has been provided with steel base isolators to withstand earthquakes.
Inspired by the California countryside, Jobs has, also, imagined green indoors, represented in 9,000 drought resistant trees which are planted all over the campus. The architecturally innovative building is expected to have a positive influence on the performance of the employees of the world-leading technology company. After all, that is what jobs had in mind for the new development, “to be the home of innovation for generations to come.” That is what Jonathan Ives further confirms when he says to Levy: “While it is a technical marvel to make glass at this scale, that’s not the achievement. The achievement is to make a building where so many people can connect and collaborate and walk and talk.” The value is not what went into the building, rather what will come out.”
