Leaked image shows architecture plans for Apple's 'spaceship' campus
A new image purported to be from Apple's architectural team offers a closer look at the design of the company's planned "spaceship" campus in Cupertino, Calif.
The image provided to AppleInsider on Friday is labeled as "confidential" and identified as "Main Building A3 Office Facade Perspective." The project name is "Campus Development."
The design matches earlier images that showed an artists' rendering of what Apple's new mega-campus in Cupertino will look like. One of the defining features of the building will be its use of curved glass around the exterior.
Listed on the document are London architecture firm Foster + Partners, consulting engineering and designing firm Arup, landscape architecture company OLIN, and Davis Langdon, a construction company.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs first revealed the plans for the new campus last June at a Cupertino city council meeting, in one of his last public appearances before his death. He described the main office building as looking "a little like a spaceship landed."
The new corporate campus will be on roughly 150 acres of land it bought from Hewlett-Packard. Groundbreaking on the project is expected to begin later this year pending government approval.
The campus will hold more than 12,000 employees and will comprise 2.8 million square feet over its four stories. Also planned are a caf? and restaurant, fitness center and corporate auditorium with seating for up to 1,000 people on the grounds, while 300,000 square feet of research facilities will be built nearby.
With construction planned to begin this year, Apple hopes it will be able to open the doors on its new corporate campus in 2015.
The image provided to AppleInsider on Friday is labeled as "confidential" and identified as "Main Building A3 Office Facade Perspective." The project name is "Campus Development."
The design matches earlier images that showed an artists' rendering of what Apple's new mega-campus in Cupertino will look like. One of the defining features of the building will be its use of curved glass around the exterior.
Listed on the document are London architecture firm Foster + Partners, consulting engineering and designing firm Arup, landscape architecture company OLIN, and Davis Langdon, a construction company.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs first revealed the plans for the new campus last June at a Cupertino city council meeting, in one of his last public appearances before his death. He described the main office building as looking "a little like a spaceship landed."
The new corporate campus will be on roughly 150 acres of land it bought from Hewlett-Packard. Groundbreaking on the project is expected to begin later this year pending government approval.
The campus will hold more than 12,000 employees and will comprise 2.8 million square feet over its four stories. Also planned are a caf? and restaurant, fitness center and corporate auditorium with seating for up to 1,000 people on the grounds, while 300,000 square feet of research facilities will be built nearby.
With construction planned to begin this year, Apple hopes it will be able to open the doors on its new corporate campus in 2015.
Comments
In three years, Samsung will being construction on their innovative 'youfoe' campus. The building will be a perfect 2:1 rectangle, one millimeter wider than Apple's new campus, and having the sharpest corners known to man.
I love how the drawing says Confidential all over it. Interesting design. I don't quite get how that cantilever is actually supported though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
In three years, Samsung will being construction on their innovative 'youfoe' campus. The building will be a perfect 2:1 rectangle, one millimeter wider than Apple's new campus, and having the sharpest corners known to man.
Yawn...
Originally Posted by mstone
I love how the drawing says Confidential all over it. Interesting design. I don't quite get how that cantilever is actually supported though.
Magic Cantilever™.
Originally Posted by UrbanVerb
Yawn...
Tell me about it. Samsung copying is old hat, and yet people still think they didn't do it.
and the website looks awesome...
It has been repeatedly stated that this is an engineering campus. It'll be a bunch of engineers in cubicles and some high-security labs that you'd never see. Heck, black cloth is draped over prototypes so other Apple employees can't see new concepts.
Any company that's open to the public is subject to more stringent laws in terms of building code, disabled access, etc. Also, liability coverage from the insurance company would likely be more expensive. Parking would have to be increased and other ancillary charges would accumulate (e.g., more security staff, extra night cleaners).
Even shareholders don't have access to their buildings with the exception of the annual shareholder meeting held at the Town Hall facility (which incidentally could be held offsite).
Make yourself a bookmarklet
Edit: Now works in Safari and Chrome. When you open the smilies menu then click your bookmarklet.
Here is another useful script.
Edit: Now works in Safari and Chrome.
Great website update AI.
Re: teh website/forum changes, ... not impressed.
It *looks* nicer but all the problems of the (recent) old forums remain (no spell-checking, no smilies, random garbage files downloading to your hard drive, etc. etc.), and nothing has really been added.
Also, [B]double-tapping to column width is completely borked[/B] as it is on all the sites that changed recently to this new type of layout (MacNN, 9to5Mac, etc.)
What's the point of even trying to view the site if you can't zoom to column width (or are you pushing folks to some crappy 'mobile" site again now). In any case, lots of folks will want to do that even if they aren't on a mobile device.
So .... FAIL!
Hardly a substantial leak if this is the only new design drawing out there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I love how the drawing says Confidential all over it. Interesting design. I don't quite get how that cantilever is actually supported though.
Optimal cantilever is 1/3 unsupported span with the other 2/3 comprised of the supporting backspan. Either that or its alien spacecraft science...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacCad
Interesting vent system at the window head. Would like to see more detail on how it will work.
Likewise. Given Apple's past, are they going to trademark every cool detail in the building?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
The cantilever looks to be basically a lightweight awning.
I know they don't get much snow in San Francisco but it doesn't look like it would even stand up to much wind load either, especially for a space ship.
I've moved all the comments about the site redesign to this thread in our Feedback section.
Not because I want to hide them, not because they're bad, but both because they belong there and because they'll be much easier for site ownership to peruse in one place instead of strung through a bunch of threads. Pass it along!
you might also move the "Is it patented yet? :-)" comment and the samsung-as-copier comments to another thread, since they add absolutely nothing to the conversation and others might want to discuss the legal ramifications ...
first off, what's with the new look to the website AI?
when in the new look, how do you login? The only Way I was able to see if I was logged in was by stumbling on the old format forum. This new site is not ready for prime time I take it.
About this article. Talk about old news here. These images have been available for public viewing (even though the documents all say "confidential") for at least a year if not longer. In fact they're currently available on the City of Cupertino's Website.
http://www.cupertino.org/index.aspx?page=1107
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I love how the drawing says Confidential all over it. Interesting design. I don't quite get how that cantilever is actually supported though.
Through continuity in the structural system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacCad
Interesting vent system at the window head. Would like to see more detail on how it will work.
This is interesting system. It looks like it is major part in the building passive cooling system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacCad
Interesting vent system at the window head. Would like to see more detail on how it will work.
You know it's a cross-sectional view of a right triangle that is missing all the superstructure curve cylinders to show the Glass curvature without being obstructed by HVAC, Wiring, substrates and more.