Apple's senior arborist reveals Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to recreate old Silicon Valle...

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As the external completion of Apple Park draws nearer, an interview with Apple senior arborist David Muffly reveals how he became the man in charge of planting the 9,000 trees and other shrubbery around the new Cupertino campus, and founder Steve Jobs' plan to recreate the local landscape before it became the modern-day Silicon Valley.




Muffly first met Steve Jobs in 2010, reports Backchannel, with the two said to have shared a love for trees and "foliage native to the pre-Silicon Valley landscape," supposedly discovered within 20 minutes of meeting each other.

Both men are said to have experienced a few similar encounters in their lifetimes, including an interest in technology and engineering, with Muffly earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford. The two also stayed in a "countercultural living situation centered around trees," albeit with Muffly staying within a "hippie commune" for years, far longer than Jobs' stay at the All One Farm in Oregon.

The arborist was initially summoned to his first meeting with Jobs via a cold call, during a job pruning lemon trees in Menlo Park, with the caller advising Jobs was looking for a new addition to his campus team. Muffly's work tending to hundreds of native oaks on hills in Stanford's campus was admired by Jobs, leading him to send headhunters to find the man responsible.

Jobs told Muffly during that initial meeting he wanted to recreate the area the campus was located within, before Silicon Valley boomed. Described as an ecological preservation project, Muffly understood the task would involve a significant number of fruit and oak trees, but it wasn't until months later when he was shown the model of Apple Park by Jobs in a conference room that the scale of the project was huge.

"I was like, whoa, this is crazy," Muffly said, about the moment he was shown the large green space he was asked to fill, in and around the circular main building. "I'm looking at it and my brain is like, it's the mothership!"

During the project itself, as part of a larger landscaping design by architecture firm The Olin Studio, Muffly had to come up with the list of plant and tree species, as well as individual selections, keeping Jobs' vision in mind.

"He had a better sense than most arborists. He could tell visually which ones looked like they had good structure," said Muffly about Jobs. In one example, Muffly describes how Jobs chose between two similar trees, with Jobs selecting the one Muffly preferred to use over one that was more common to the area.

Muffly also convinced Jobs the use of other species that could thrive in climate change-triggered droughts. He used an investment example as reasoning that the use of native trees as an ecosystem backbone then diversifying into other types was the way to go, telling Jobs "You have to diversify your portfolio if you don't know what's coming down the pike."

For the final stages of the landscaping project, Muffly will have installed around 9,000 trees around the campus. This also includes a large number of fruit trees that will be farmed for the campus cafeteria, as well as providing varying blooms throughout the year.

As well as abiding by Jobs' request for apricots, a sequentially ripening orchard was designed by Muffly, who estimates that it may provide 20 percent of the campus' fruit supply. Alongside apricots will be plums, persimmons, and 17 varieties of apples and cherries, with 37 varieties of fruit grown on site.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    boboliciousbobolicious Posts: 1,139member
    Some of the most meaningful space of the design may be this productive restoration landscape...
    cincyteepropod
  • Reply 2 of 12
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Breaking tree news!
  • Reply 3 of 12
    NemWanNemWan Posts: 118member
    Breaking tree news!
    Apples to be made grown in America.
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 4 of 12
    So this is basically another example of what Jobs did to save Apple when he returned. Hire the right people, have vision and sweat the details. We miss you, Steve.
    lostkiwiwonkothesanepropodmagman1979jony0colinngavidthinker
  • Reply 5 of 12
    I love Mr. Muffly and Steve Jobs’s arboreal passions, but Mr. Muffly’s faith in unilaterally deleterious climate religion is a leap I’m unwilling to make.

    As the New York Times reported: “…the most recent computer projections suggest that as the world warms, California should get wetter, not drier…” (Justin Gillis, “Science Linking Drought to Global Warming Remains Matter of Dispute,” February 16, 2014. Also note: Freeman Dyson, “Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society,” Edge, August 7, 2007).

    Science-based diversifying would entail preparations for wetter or drier eventualities, and droughts regardless of the triggering.
    patchythepirate
  • Reply 6 of 12
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
     California should get wetter, not drier…
    You are probably right but California is a big state. Although Southern California got a lot of rain this past winter season, normally we receive a lot less than Northern California.

    In 2015, which was supposed to be an El Niño year, meteorologists were predicting a lot of rain for SoCal, but it never happened. Weather is mostly unpredictable more than a week or so in advance. 

    Some experts are also predicting extended drought conditions in Mexico and Chile which produce the majority of fruits and vegetables for the US during the winter months. If that trend continues it could cause significant issues for us. There are some nay sayers, but most scientists agree that global warming is real.

    Oak and fruit trees such that are being planted at Apple Park usually do pretty well in high to moderate rainfall conditions and I'd expect them to have irrigation systems in place in the event of a drought. 
  • Reply 7 of 12
    bloggerblogbloggerblog Posts: 2,462member
    Good thing he's not a Horologist!  <Pirates of the Caribbean joke>
  • Reply 8 of 12
    fmalloyfmalloy Posts: 105member
    "...recreate the old, pre-Silicon Valley landscape"

    Yeah - for his employees. For the rest of the Valley, he's contributed to turning it into another string of crowded cities, with hi-rise hi-tech office buildings and spaceships. And, all those new employees moving in from other states and countries need a place to live right? So tear down more trees and more green open areas to build apartment blocs that are popping up in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and San Jose.  The freeways are all jammed now with cars and those white buses coming from the City. 

    I guess it's nice that he's creating the quiet, old Silicon Valley for his own people. Before Apple, Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn came to town, some people might remember when the Santa Clara Valley had fruit orchards. They're all gone now.

    Everyone comes down on Trump - but I think ironically, Apple has done far more to directly contribute to global warming and damaging the environment than Trump has.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    Well, Orange County California used to be all citrus. We can bemoan the loss and rail against change, but I still applaud those who preserve what we have left. Hoping that such efforts help develop a sensitivity toward more environmentally sensitive development of booms in the future. Not sure a Trump inspired view of such things is more contributory than Jobs'. 
    stantheman
  • Reply 10 of 12
    Very well-written article!  Thank you!
  • Reply 11 of 12
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    fmalloy said:
    "...recreate the old, pre-Silicon Valley landscape"

    Yeah - for his employees. For the rest of the Valley, he's contributed to turning it into another string of crowded cities, with hi-rise hi-tech office buildings and spaceships. And, all those new employees moving in from other states and countries need a place to live right? So tear down more trees and more green open areas to build apartment blocs that are popping up in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and San Jose.  The freeways are all jammed now with cars and those white buses coming from the City. 

    I guess it's nice that he's creating the quiet, old Silicon Valley for his own people. Before Apple, Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn came to town, some people might remember when the Santa Clara Valley had fruit orchards. They're all gone now.

    Everyone comes down on Trump - but I think ironically, Apple has done far more to directly contribute to global warming and damaging the environment than Trump has.
    Apple is not responsible for land use management of those cities/counties/state. They could easily had densified the whole place and used 1/6 the area.
    That's suburban post war mindset is what has been destructive.

    Until 2005. Apple was a minor employer in the valley, and most of the cities they're in now were ALREADY DEVELOPED completely.

    Their current campus uses an old HP campus and most of the buildings they're renting now are not new.

    As for your last words, shut up with that inane nonsense; considering Trumps builds fracking golf courses and is involved in countless coastal resorts all over the place on sensitive lands, including in FRACKING DESERTS, that is even more insane. Those resorts/courses probably use more 10 times the space in those sensitive areas and use more resources too than 10 Apples!

    That he's now pushing 50 different ways of destroying the planet, the Paris accord retreat being just one of them is just icing on the cake.
    edited June 2017 propodstourque
  • Reply 12 of 12
    propodpropod Posts: 67member
    I hope they build beehives on the campus. Colony of bees would help a lot in the area to fertilize the fruit trees. And who wouldn't want to by Apple made honey from the mothership?
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