Apple was warned of glass danger
Employees have run into walls they couldn’t see
When Albert Salvador, Cupertino’s building official, visited Apple’s new spaceship building last year, he worried that people would walk into the cafeteria’s glass walls because they couldn’t distinguish them from the equally clear automatic doors.
After he brought up the issue, a contractor walked straight into the glass. He would not be the last. The glamorous $5 billion headquarters, called Apple Park and built for more than 13,000 employees, was championed by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a temple of design. He believed that the campus’ glass-encased, ringshape centerpiece could become “the best office building in the world.” But in January, as office workers began moving in after five years of construction, several employees walked into glass panes. It is unclear how many people hurt themselves, but The Chronicle found at least three incidents in a review of 911 audio and incident reports obtained from Santa Clara County in a public records request.
Three people suffered head injuries, including a middleaged man who hit his head so hard against a glass window that he was bleeding on his eyebrow and expected to have stitches, according to 911 audio.
“We did recognize that this is going to be an issue, especially when they clean the glass,” Salvador said, adding: “When you clean the windows, you can’t even tell some of them are there.”
Salvador and Dirk Mattern with the Santa Clara County Fire Department said they raised concerns about the glass doors of the cafeteria, a
highlight of the spaceship building, during a visit to Apple Park nine months ago. State building code requires that doors be identifiable. They were talking with one contractor when another walked into a glass wall, both men said.
“That helped form our point,” Mattern said.
Apple Park’s architect, Foster and Partners, a London firm that also worked on the Reichstag in Berlin, did not return a request for comment.
Apple declined to comment. But in January, Dan Whisenhunt, an Apple vice president of real estate and development, told the Rotary Club of Cupertino that birds flying into the glass had not proved much of a problem.
“Now the humans on the inside, that’s a different story,” Whisenhunt said. “We’ve had people bump into the glass. That’s a problem we are working on right now.”
Paola Laverde, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Industrial Relations, said she has not heard of similar problems in other glass buildings. The division is aware of the injuries caused by people walking into the glass at Apple Park but cannot comment on whether complaints have been filed or if it is carrying out inspections, she said.
California’s Code of Regulations requires companies to protect “against the hazard of walking through glass by barriers or conspicuous durable markings,” but that code is geared toward the safety of construction workers, not office employees. There isn’t a safety regulation that requires employers to protect office workers from walking into glass walls, but the state does require employers to “identify and address hazards in the workplace,” Laverde said.
After Salvador and Mattern brought up the glass issue, Foster and Partners placed black rectangular stickers with rounded corners on the glass panes, Salvador said. The stickers were placed in the cafeteria before Salvador gave his Dec. 30 approval for Apple employees to begin moving into the main building.
“In my mind, the building is safe per the codes that I enforce,” Salvador said, adding that he chiefly considers fire protection and life safety systems. “We don’t look at running into glass.”
Employees began moving into Apple Park’s spaceship building on Jan. 2, Salvador said. The accidents began on the first day, with two men suffering head injuries, followed by a third on Jan. 4, according to the incident reports obtained by The Chronicle, which cover the beginning of January through midFebruary. Afterward, Foster and Partners and Apple started
“When you clean the windows, you can’t even tell some of them are there.” Albert Salvador, Cupertino building official
putting the rectangular stickers on other parts of the building, Salvador said. The stickers were effective in preventing people from running into glass, he said.
After Jan. 4, there were no other incidents in which emergency services were called to treat people running into the glass.
Apple has used similar stickers at its retail stores. White rectangular stickers can be spotted at the Apple Store at Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara.
Jobs, who died in 2011, wanted the building, with its walls of curved glass, to stand out. Architecture students would come to Cupertino to see it, Jobs predicted.
But for now, the company permits only employees to enter its building. At a recent shareholder meeting, CEO Tim Cook declined an investor’s request for a tour, offering to send him a photo instead. A visitor center across the street from Apple Park is open to the public, with flat (not curved) glass walls and glass doors with black rims.
Chief Design Officer Jony Ive in an interview last year at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington called many of the criticisms of Apple Park “utterly bizarre, because it wasn’t made” for the critics. “I know how we work, and you don’t,” said Ive.
None of the three January incidents involving people hitting their heads on the glass at Apple Park reviewed by The Chronicle resulted in people going immediately to the hospital.
As Apple’s Whisenhunt alluded, birds have long flown into glass windows. But the idea that people could injure themselves in an office made largely of glass is fairly new. One of the Apple Park victims, a 23-year-old man, had to correct a Santa Clara County dispatcher when describing his injury on a 911 call.
“I didn’t walk through a glass door,” he said. “I walked
into a glass door.”