Apple Park
Apple Park, also known as Apple Campus 2, is the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc., located in Cupertino, California, United States. It was opened to employees in April 2017, while construction was still underway. It replaced Apple Campus as the company's corporate headquarters.
The main building's scale and circular groundscraper design, by Norman Foster, has earned the structure the media nickname "the spaceship". Located on a suburban site totaling, it houses more than 12,000 employees in one central four-story circular building of approximately. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted the campus to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge; 80 percent of the site consists of green space planted with drought-resistant trees and plants indigenous to the Cupertino area, and the center courtyard of the main building features an artificial pond.
History
In April 2006, Apple's then CEO Steve Jobs announced to the city council of Cupertino that Apple had acquired nine contiguous properties to build a second campus, the Apple Campus 2. The idea for a new headquarters was conceived by Jobs and Apple's then chief designer Jony Ive. Ive was Apple's immediate choice to design the project, going on to work very closely together with Norman Foster across five years, designing every detail, from the glass panels to the elevator buttons.Purchases of the needed properties were made through the company Hines Interests, which in at least some cases did not disclose the fact that Apple was the ultimate buyer; Philip Mahoney, a partner with a local commercial real estate brokerage, noted that this is common practice in attempts to arrange the purchase of contiguous land made up of multiple parcels with separate owners, in order to keep costs from skyrocketing and not reveal the company's plans to competitors. Among the sellers of the properties were SummerHill Homes and Hewlett-Packard.
Until April 2008, Apple had not sought the necessary permits to begin construction, so it was estimated that the project would not be ready in 2010 as originally proposed; however, the buildings on the site were held by Apple for its operations. In November 2010 the San Jose Mercury News revealed that Apple had bought an additional no longer used by HP, just north across Pruneridge Ave. This space had been the HP campus in Cupertino before it was relocated to Palo Alto.
On June 7, 2011, Jobs presented to the Cupertino City Council details of the architectural design of the new buildings and their surroundings. He did not live to see construction begin, dying a few months later on October 5.
On October 15, 2013, Cupertino City Council unanimously approved Apple's plans for the new campus after a six-hour debate. Shortly thereafter, demolition work began to prepare the site for construction.
Originally expected to break ground in 2013 and open in 2015, the project was delayed and started in 2014. On February 22, 2017, Apple announced that the official name of the campus would be "Apple Park", and the auditorium would be named the "Steve Jobs Theater".
The campus opened for workers in April 2017, despite continued construction work. This was followed by the first event in the Steve Jobs Theater, which took place on September 12, 2017. The Apple Park Visitor Center opened two months and five days later, on November 17, 2017.
As a consequence of the construction of Apple Park in the area, surrounding streets have seen increased tourism as well as rising real estate values, due to Apple employees' desire to live near their workplace.
Location
Apple Park is located east of the original Apple Campus. Apple has had a presence in Cupertino since 1977, which is why the company decided to build in the area rather than move to a cheaper, distant location. The campus is also next to a contaminated site under Superfund legislation with a groundwater plume found to contain trichloroethylene from improper disposal of industrial waste by semiconductor manufacturers.Design and construction
, in June 2011, in his final public appearance before his death, was quoted as saying:The ring-shaped building, advertised as "a perfect circle", was not originally planned as such. The inner rim and outer rim on each floor are left open as walkways. There are eight buildings, separated by nine mini-atria. The campus is in circumference, with a diameter of. The one circular building houses most employees. It is four stories above the ground and three stories underground. Apple created life-size mock-ups of all parts of the building to analyze any design issues.
The campus design places the roads underground. Cars are parked underground and in two multistory parking garages. The campus uses only glass for its walls and views of the inner courtyard as well as of the landscape facing the exterior of the building. Around of space is for meetings and breakout spaces in the building. The inner part of the circular building contains a park featuring a pond, with fruit trees and winding pathways inspired by California fruit orchards.
Apple brought to the construction project the same "fanatical attention to detail" which the company is famous for lavishing upon its products. Apple insisted on extraordinarily tight tolerances, even for parts of the structure normally hidden from view. Construction workers were often required to wear gloves to minimize accidental damage to surfaces. All interior wood used for furniture was harvested from a certain species of maple, with Apple working with construction companies from 19 countries for designs and materials.
A breathing, hollow concrete slab acts as floor, ceiling, and HVAC system. A total of 4,300 such slabs were used. Some of the slabs weigh.
Construction
During construction, the building's structure was started by Skanska and DPR, but they were removed from the job for undisclosed reasons. Apple hired Rudolph and Sletten and Holder Construction as its new general contractors, and they completed the structure, envelope, and interior buildout. Truebeck Construction worked on the exterior landscaping, Steve Jobs Theater, and the health and fitness center; a joint venture of BNBTBuilders and Webcor Builders worked on an adjacent group of research and development buildings; McCarthy Building Companies built the parking garage; and Granite Construction performed road widening and utility work. The project created approximately 13,000 full-time construction jobs.The facade panes are produced by Bavarian companies Josef Gartner and Sedak. The latter company is a subsidiary of Seele GmbH; Apple had previously worked with Seele, an expert on glass facades, for some of its more prominent Apple Stores such as the one on 5th Avenue in New York City. David Nicholl and Partners delivered the M&E works.
Costs
The land cost was estimated at $160 million. In 2011, the budget for Apple Campus 2 was less than $3 billion. However, in 2013 the total cost was estimated to be closer to $5 billion.Energy source
The campus was announced as one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world, and the main building, Steve Jobs Theater, and fitness center are all LEED Platinum certified. In an April 2018 press release, Apple announced that it had switched to being powered entirely by renewable energy. The solar panels installed on the roof of the campus can generate 17 megawatts of power, sufficient to power 75% during peak daytime, and making it one of the largest solar roofs in the world. The other 4 megawatts are generated onsite using Bloom Energy Server fuel cells, which are powered by biofuel or natural gas. The air flows freely between the inside and outside of the building, providing natural ventilation and obviating the need for HVAC systems during nine months of the year.Facilities
Cafés
The campus has seven cafés, with the largest being a three-level café for 3,000 sitting people. It has light-colored stone lining and glass railing with no metal support and is surrounded by extensive landscaping. The mezzanine space of can accommodate 600 people and 1,750 seats on terraces outside, with a capacity to serve 15,000 lunches a day, housed by specially designed 500 tables made of solid Spessart white oak, measuring long and wide.The sports tables and benches resemble those in Apple Stores.
Auditorium
Officially known as the Steve Jobs Theater, after the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, the facility is located atop a hill on the campus. It is an underground, 1,000-seat auditorium intended for Apple product launches and press meets. It has a large above-ground cylinder-shaped lobby with stairs down to the auditorium. The theater has 350 parking spaces on North Tantau Avenue and a pedestrian path leading to the main campus located northwest of the theater.The theater plays host to many types of events, from Apple Events such as product announcements, WWDC, and shareholder's meetings, to special Apple Music events, such as performances by Billie Eilish and Ludovico Einaudi.
The theater's lobby has cylindrical-shaped glass walls and no support columns, which give an unhindered 360-degree view of the surrounding campus. The carbon-fiber roof, made of 44 identical panels, was supplied by the Dubai-based company, Premier Composite Technologies. Each panel is long and wide and locks in the middle with the other panels. It is the largest carbon-fiber roof and the largest glass-supported structure in the world.
The theater also includes a high glass elevator that rotates 171 degrees from the bottom floor to the upper lobby level. The elevator is made from chemically tempered glass, and is considered to be the tallest free-standing glass elevator in the world.
The theater's first press event was held on September 12, 2017, where the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 3 and Apple TV 4K were announced.