MEET APPLE PARK
A LOOK INSIDE APPLE’S 175- ACRE CAMPUS WITH A SPACESHIP EPICENTER & STEVE JOBS THEATER
The new home of Apple headquarters, Apple Park, is nearly complete. The park's main building, referred to as the “Spaceship” thanks to its ring-shaped design, covers 2.8 million square feet and will become home to some 12,000 employees, bringing Steve Jobs' vision for a new Apple campus to life. The grounds span a whopping 175 acres, and everything runs entirely on renewable energy, which is a massive feat for one of the largest office campuses in the world. Before his death, Steve Jobs worked to get the city of Cupertino to approve construction of the futuristic building. And now, at the highest point of the Apple Park campus stands the Steve Jobs Theater, which I suspect will be the auditorium of choice for the upcoming iPhone 8 release.
STEVE JOBS’ VISION
“Steve's vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us,” said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. Cook has consistently worked to honor Jobs' legacy, with Apple Park's 1,000-seat auditorium, named after the late founder, being only the most recent. “Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness. It was his favorite setting for thought. Apple Park captures his spirit uncannily well,” said Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs.
The campus is designed to provide a holistic environment not only for the planet, but for the employees who work there and members of the public who come to visit. The courtyard at the center of the spaceship building will house 30 acres of green space featuring orchards harboring apple, olive, and apricot trees, along with a sprawling meadow and pond. The surrounding parklands offer two miles of walking trails for employees. According to Apple, the company has partnered with architectural firm Foster + Partners to replace “5 million square feet of asphalt and concrete with grassy fields and over 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees.”
“Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate, and work together,” said Jony Ive, Apple's chief design officer. Operating on 100 percent renewable energy, the spaceship building will boast 17 megawatts of rooftop solar. It's also the world's largest naturally ventilated building, requiring no heating or air conditioning for nine months out of the year.
THE PRICE OF SUSTAINABILITY
Building Apple Park hasn't come cheap, however. Once it's all said and done, Apple will have spent an estimated $5 billion on the campus. On the property, Apple built two sep-
“CONNECTING EXTRAORDINARILY ADVANCED BUILDINGS WITH ROLLING PARKLAND CREATES A WONDERFULLY OPEN ENVIRONMENT FOR PEOPLE TO CREATE, COLLABORATE, AND WORK TOGETHER.” – JONY IVE