Apple’s new 175-acre spaceship-like campus in California, dubbed Apple Park, is set to open its door to some 12,000 employees this April.
Situated in Santa Clara valley, the 2.8 million ft2 campus will be a centre for creativity and collaboration. The ring shaped campus and the entire building will be clad with the world’s largest panels of curved glass.
In honour of the Apple’s iconic founder Steve Jobs, the theatre at the campus has been named the Steve Jobs Theater.
The new campus will also include a visitors’ centre with an Apple Store and a cafe open for the general public. It will also include a 100,000 ft2 fitness centre for Apple’s employees, as well as secured research and development facilities.
The parklands will have two miles of walking and running paths for employees, along with an orchard, meadow and pond within the ring’s interior grounds.
It is also claimed that the campus will include more than 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees and will be powered completely by renewable energy through rooftop solar panels, generating about 17MW.
This is claimed to be one of the largest on-site solar installations. The site is also being hailed as the largest naturally ventilated building, which virtually requires no heating or air conditioning for about nine months in a year.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “Steve’s vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come.
“The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We’ve achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy.”
Apple chief design officer Jony Ive said: “Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments. We have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterise our products.
“Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate and work together. We have been extremely fortunate to be able to work closely, over many years, with the remarkable architectural practice Foster + Partners.”
