LA Times critic disparages Apple Campus 2 as 'retrograde cocoon'

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  • Reply 81 of 305
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by photoshop59 View Post


    I would not want to work in a circular environment like that. There is a reason that most of our architecture is right angled, and logical. People will feel out of sorts, disoriented, and uncomfortable in a space like this.



    That's silly. Given the size of the circle, the individual rooms can be square (with pie shaped dividers between them) or so slightly trapezoidal that you won't be able to tell that they're not rectangular.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post


    I couldn't disagree with you more on that. Metropolitan in this context is building a community, rather than isolating the campus from the community-- literally turning inward to a protected plaza. The complete (historical) disregard for public transit from the city of Cupertino is part of the problem, but the campus could have worked much better with what urban fabric exists in the area.



    The fundamental flaw in this is that you're assuming that Apple is creating a community. They're not building a city center. Or a mall. Or a low cost housing project. Or a public meeting place. They're building a facility for their company. Their company's needs are all that matters. And isolating the company from the community is actually a positive in many respects. In fact, this seems to provide the best of both worlds - easy access to the community while providing a private location where employees can do their job while isolated from the community.
  • Reply 82 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post


    You need the protected quadrangle if you want the secrecy. You want a single structure if you need the flexibility that large footprints allow. From a security and internal culture standpoint, you want to keep people inside the circle.



    The prototype for the "protected quadrangle" is the college quad at Oxford, which was developed during the Middle Ages as a sort of fortress to protect the scholars and books from medieval marauders. It is unfortunate that Apple feels it has to return to that prototype.



    In America we invented a new type of quadrange, now used on every American campus, that has open corners and edges. By creating continuity with nature and the community, we express fundamental American values of openness and respect for the surrounding environment.



    There are many secure buildings today that don't turn their backs on the world. Today we use technology for security, not 11th century planning ideas.
  • Reply 83 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Michael Wilkie View Post


    You may not hold that position if you were to engage in more Architectural discourse. Many of the most influential and well-respected ideas in Architecture come from theorists, not practitioners.



    The same is true in engineering, of course. The Mac wouldn't exist without Xerox's "non-practical, proof-of-concept" research on the desktop metaphor, for example.





    Xerox didn't come up with the idea of a GUI or E-mail, IM, the WWW or most everything we now take for granted, all these ideas were worked out in the 60's. Xerox just showed a way to impliment ideas for less than an arm and a leg or a million dollars. If Xerox had vanished before SJ visited, there would have still been a Mac. Maybe not by Apple but the ideas where out there and they would have been tried. Hell i remember games that incorperated the ideas of the modern GUI and they did that on 8 bit computers before the Mac.



    Also "Many of the most influential and well-respected ideas in Architecture come from theorists, not practitioners." No, your just wrong there. You are so wrong it's hard to even know where to start, infact that is just BS.
  • Reply 84 of 305
    That guy doesn't even live in the same "state", man...
  • Reply 85 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Michael Wilkie View Post


    It's not about "the feeling of a metropolitan realm", but rather limitations of space, resources, transit, and environmental concerns that lead the architectural community to largely favor metropolitan development.



    In addition to that, culture and diversity are typically scarce in suburban areas relative to a city. It's considered to be a shame when company keeps all these talented, wealthy, and well-educated people cooped-up within the confines of a suburban setting, rather than mixed into a larger group that would greatly benefit from the presence of the type of people that work for a company like Apple.



    The problem with this direction is that the urban area selected has none of the amenities to support a "non-automotive" solution. Complaining about a design that supports the conditions on the ground is ignoring what humans want and what California provides. The "Cooped-up" in suburbia is a nonsensical concept, I suppose the only freedom of movement is in a squared grid of concrete that makes it easier to herd people from one concrete locale to another for architects with socialist leanings "'...it will be so much better for you, to live as I think you should..". The folks that chose to live in a space do so, mainly by choice. This choice seems to me to be one of desire to be at Apple and be a part of that adventure. Mixing with a wide variety of people that tell them they are wrong to produce such odd things as phones and tablets, when everyone really wants a PC and rotary dial systems seem counter to the culture that has been established and cultivated at Apple. Isolation can be good. And finally, as in all circumstances - it is their $ to use as they see fit.
  • Reply 86 of 305
    axualaxual Posts: 244member
    Should anyone care about this critic or his criticism? I think not.
  • Reply 87 of 305
    fight against urban sprawl, re-create downtown in the suburbs, densify the suburbs, reduce the size of the car. This is what is said in the article, this is a European thinking. In this city it promotes public transportation in recent years with the creation of trams, or prohibiting too many parking spaces in shopping centers. It is surprising to read that in an American newspaper especially in California. This is not American culture, which is the low density, a house with a garden and a car as the preferred means of transportation such as los angeles. I read in the Los Angeles Times, saying comments "we don't want communist cities." only U.S. cities like NYC, Boston and can be other, look like to European cities, as it is the oldest, they were developed before the car is the primary mode of transport.
  • Reply 88 of 305
    gmhutgmhut Posts: 242member
    I read the real purpose of the design is to be the first test for potential new hires. They are told all the bathrooms in the complex are out of order, and their only option is to pee in the corner. Purportedly, their responses to the challenge will be a major part of the review process.
  • Reply 89 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Michael Wilkie View Post


    The theories upon which he's basing his opinion are well-established in the Architectural community — no need to restate them. The principle of "suburban sprawl" was written off decades ago by just about everyone who knows anything about Architecture and urban planning.



    Would a medical writer need to break new theoretical ground in depression research in order to criticize a new cold medicine that causes depression? I think not.





    Okay... so this is an opinion... based on theory. A flawed opinion by the way.



    If Hawthorne wants to be taken seriously then he has to give us a practical example of the theory... so the rest of us peasants can understand his highfalutin ideas.



    An example like Masdar City in UAE... which, by the way, is also designed by Foster.



    Strange, then, that Hawthorne and a few other critics believe that Foster would want to design the Masdar Development and then, supposedly, turn around and build the antithesis of that development... the new Apple Campus.



    Maybe a little digging would have told Hawthorne that Apple City actually incorporates most of the features that his pet theory asserts (actually, his article sounds like a boy's crush on Louise Mozingo). Urban sprawl - hardly... this project does not extend the boundaries of Cupertino, the land is already being used for the same purpose, but poorly; depenence on the car - hardly... they want to link the old campus with the new by tunnels... and Apple can't be blamed for an automobile driven society... maybe cupertino and the rest of the world should catch up to Apple by providing mass transit or more cheap zero emissions vehicles (and who is to say that many of the Apple employees won't use bicycles (Foster's favourite mode of transportation); lack of mingling of the population - are you kidding... there are 12,000 people going into this campus and another few thousand at the other campus and more in the future campus... how many people are needed before we are mingling.



    I could spend another day or two ripping this guy apart... but I think it's obvious that he just read a new book (Mozingo) and it made a few of his synapses pop, so he thought he'd make himself look all bright and cool to the rest of the snobs by pissing on the Apple campus.



    [on edit: we could argue all year long about what is the best environment for working and living but at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves how we feel and what is our ideal. Personally, I've always liked working at home and have done so for most of my working life. If I had to go outside of the home to work then I would rather go to the Apple campus than into some busy urban maze... no matter how good it's supposed to be for my collective responsibility towards society. I really would like to see Hawthorne and/or Mozingo give us an example of how they would house 12,000 employees into their ideal framework... maybe their theories only work with an employee base below 500, but until we see an example then it's only a theory... one that may or may not work. I think Mozingo envisions a Utopia, but has absolutely no practical way of getting there without disastrous results.]



    By the way... this is an interesting read:



    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008...roundtable.php
  • Reply 90 of 305
    The opinions that count are those made by the employees who will be working there on a daily basis, not from some LA Times snob who does a drive-by hit piece.
  • Reply 91 of 305
    foljsfoljs Posts: 390member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by photoshop59 View Post


    I would not want to work in a circular environment like that. There is a reason that most of our architecture is right angled, and logical. People will feel out of sorts, disoriented, and uncomfortable in a space like this.



    OCD much?



    You *do* understand that there are tons of other circular buildings, from skyscrapers to offices and people adjust to them just fine....



    (oh, there's even a turned-90 degrees circular skyscraper, AlDar HQ).
  • Reply 92 of 305
    All I know is that it better have a physical keyboard and a user replaceable battery.
  • Reply 93 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Doctor David View Post


    All I know is that it better have a physical keyboard and a user replaceable battery.



    I'm just trying to imagine what that would look like incorporated into the new campus...
  • Reply 94 of 305
    I agree with many posters here that this design is consistent with the way we have done things in America for the past 50+ years. The new campus will be a ideal example of what American corporations and suburbs are about. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that. And, there is a good chance that the building will be beautiful, as an object, just like all Apple's products are.



    But I think the LA Times critic and others here wish that the greatest American company of this era, a company that has changed for the better so much about the way we work and live, could have been as ambitious for this campus as they are for their products. As they tell us repeatedly, it is not just about the design, what really matters is the way it changes our lives and work.



    It may be no coincidence that the public philanthropy issue (or lack thereof by Jobs and Apple) is also hitting the news these days. Many of us wish that Apple would act more like a forward-looking corporate citizen of the 21st century.



    There is a great dissonance between Apples products (and apparent values as expressed in those products) and their behavior as a corporation.
  • Reply 95 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    I'm just trying to imagine what that would look like incorporated into the new campus...



    I wish I was a photoshop guy so I could better illustrate. Cause, ya know, apple could use some help in the design dept.
  • Reply 96 of 305
    Personally, as an Art student and a designer who loves architecture, I think his criticism is bizarre.
  • Reply 97 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JONOROM View Post


    I agree with many posters here that this design is consistent with the way we have done things in America for the past 50+ years. The new campus will be a ideal example of what American corporations and suburbs are about. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that. And, there is a good chance that the building will be beautiful, as an object, just like all Apple's products are.



    But I think the LA Times critic and others here wish that the greatest American company of this era, a company that has changed for the better so much about the way we work and live, could have been as ambitious for this campus as they are for their products. As they tell us repeatedly, it is not just about the design, what really matters is the way it changes our lives and work.



    It may be no coincidence that the public philanthropy issue (or lack thereof by Jobs and Apple) is also hitting the news these days. Many of us wish that Apple would act more like a forward-looking corporate citizen of the 21st century.



    There is a great dissonance between Apples products (and apparent values as expressed in those products) and their behavior as a corporation.



    The difference between 2nd wave and 3rd wave companies was introduced in another thread a while back but it was never discussed. I think it's that difference that you are unknowingly alluding to in your comments.



    I'd really like it if you'd flesh out your reasons for believing there is "great" dissonance between Apple and its products. Personally, I think that Apple is the crescendo in 2nd wave culture... taken us as far as we can go in this direction... in its corporate structure, its products and its architecture. I see little, if any, dissonance.



    Jim Morrison comes to mind...
  • Reply 98 of 305
    jmmxjmmx Posts: 341member
    Quote:

    According to the report, Apple's proposed "Campus 2 Project" is a classic example of "pastoral capitalism," a label coined by UC Berkeley professor Louise A. Mozingo. The term refers to an American tendency for a corporation "to turn its back on cities and stake a claim on the suburban pastoral idyll ? isolated, proprietary, verdant, and disengaged from civic space," a description that Hawthorne believes perfectly fits Apple's planned headquarters.



    AND perfectly fits Apple's culture. So it is therefore rather appropriate.



    The fellow is entitled to his opinion. It is senseless to argue about taste. He makes some good points, but we do not have to take his views as handed down from the gods on tablet computers.
  • Reply 99 of 305
    I'm most intrigued by the comments that this campus won't inspire the designs of future cities. I'm no urban planner or architect, but I think it's dangerous to disregard the advantages of this structure.



    Moving bodies up requires far more energy than overcoming the forces of mu and moving side to side. vertical buildings require significant portions of the structure to be devoted to this vertical movement, including stairs, elevators, plumbing and sometimes alternate fire escapes. While I've seen some wonderful renders/concept cities which use large vertical buildings to create a city in a building, where each floor is a different part of your everyday life (residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and cultural portions each in one building) this idea is a great way to maximize the utility of each square meter of land used, but the also maximize some of the amount of energy to move about and they force people to stay in their structure as if you're on the 50th floor of one building, you'd have to go down to the bottom, go to the next building, and possibly go all the way back up.



    This huge low profile circle idea has other advantages to city planning. here, vertical transportation is minimized, also minimizing the amount of structure responsible for getting us up and down the building. The circle promotes people wandering a bit in their free time. Also, as has been pointed out, the circle can have well planned paths which dissect the building, encouraging people to step outside and get some vitamin d as well as drastically cutting down on transportation time. Open and continous greens space is highlighted in this design and it does so without becoming majorly inconvenient.



    If future cities were designed in one giant beltway with huge gardens in the middle, I think there could be strong potential for that succeeding. Particularly if you consider having concentric loops of building space , keeping everything close, but little impeding your movement around the structure.
  • Reply 100 of 305
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Constable Odo View Post


    What a prick. Did anyone actually ask for his two-bit opinion?



    Uh, Yes, actually - he's an architecture critic. On the other hand, what's your qualification for criticizing him?
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