Archive for June 2011

Apple Set To Build New Campus in Cupertino by 2015





Apple's CEO Steve Jobs has presented Apple's plans for building a new campus to the Cupertino City Council. The presentation included many images of how the completed structure will look like. The campus will have a circular 4-story building that will hold 12,000 - 13,000 Apple employees. This will be on the land previously purchased from Hewlett Packard at I-280 in Cupertino California. The structure is expected to be completed by 2015.




Here is what Steve Jobs had to say:

"It's a pretty amazing building. It's a little like a spaceship landed. It's got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle. It's a circle. It's curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It's all curved. We've used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building. It's pretty cool."




The proposed campus looks environmentally friendly as 80% of the area will be landscaping, the majority of the car parking will be underground, currently there is only 20% landscaping and all of the car parking is above ground. The amount of trees in the area will be increased from 3,700 to more than 6,000 trees, there will be many trees that are native to Cupertino including some apricot orchards.




 

The City of Cupertino Council were overall impressed with Apple's new campus proposal. Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong said "there is no chance we are saying no". So far this is looking very positive for Apple's new development. However, Apple's proposed campus still needs to go through a public hearing and an environmental assessment.