Inside Apple’s New $5 Billion Headquarters
It might look like a UFO, but this giant futuristic building is actually an entire campus dedicated to Apple known as Apple park, the spaceship or the ring. This $5 billion building was eventually completed in 2017 and hasroom to blur the distinction between inside and outside for 15,000 workers.The building is cooled with completely natural air flow has huge four story, tall glass doors that weigh 440,000 pounds each and its own rooftop. Solar farms. There are also hidden secrets underground that only the mind of Steve jobs could have come up with. So let’s take a tour and see why Apple’s mother ship is the company’s greatest innovation yet. When Steve jobs came up with the idea for Apple park in 2011, he wanted to make,And we would like to put a new campus on that.
Apple park ( Apple Headquarters) was envisioned as a hub for innovation, with a unique open concept, plenty of communal working places and trees straight from natural parks. Jobs wanted to create a collaborative space where Apple’s many workers could venture off for a walk in the park to clear their head and then slip back into the office to get back to brainstorming. Apple’s next big invention jobs pitched the idea to the Cupertino city council in California in 2011. At the time Apple’s employees were spread across 100 different buildings. He wanted all of his best and brightest to work in one complex, which he referred to as a campus. The goal of this innovative park was to combine nature, sustainability and technological advancement to create the future of office work. To start with Apple bought an industrial park in Cupertino about an hour away from San Francisco though, it was largely covered by asphalt.
It sat among st man-made rolling Hills to get the ball rolling on development. Steve jobs met with architect, Norman foster, a Pritzker prize and winner whose commissions had included the Berlin Rick’s dog, the Hong Kong airport, and London’s infamous Gherkin tower. His architecture firm, foster and partners decided to take on a unique project and they came up with a budget of about $500 million. Unfortunately, that budget didn’t work for very long. By the end of 2011 development costs were estimated at about $3 billion. And then by completion in 2017, the new Apple HQ racked up on astonishing $5 billion price tag. It’s a good thing. Apple had the money to pay since the company is worth at least $2 trillion today. And once you have a good look at all the innovative and unique craftsmanship done on this one of a kind building, it’s not hard to see why it’s worth billions.
Steve jobs passed away in 2011. So most of the ideas that Apple park are his, the team was working without his instruction. For the majority of the time, it took them to build the office. Apple’s headquarters covers about 2.8 million square feet. And its most prominent building is a gigantic ring that surrounds the entire campus, which contains about 1.2 million square feet of office space to get to the campus. You have to drive through a 755 foot, 230 meter underground tunnel with white tiled walls, which then brings you to a huge underground parking lot with room for 3000 cars, there’s parking for another 6,000 cars above ground. The ring is four stories high and as 12 members of staff though, it’s estimated that about 15,000 people could work at the park and comfort. The park even comes with 1000 bicycles for employees to use to move around the spacious campus.
Other aspects, encouraging employee health or the state-of-the-art wellness center and basketball courts. This health and wellness complex includes a two-story yoga studio, physical therapy studio and laundry facilities. It even offers employees access to medical and dental services right onsite. This wellness center alone costs almost $17 million to construct, but it was a vital addition to ensure the health and happiness of Apple‘s hardworking employees. Plus it was Steve jobs belief that a good engineer is one that gets their body moving to inspire the brainstorming that’s needed to come up with truly innovative ideas with all of these sports facilities. He’s definitely encouraging his employees to get out of their office chairs and live a little lunchtime is another priority at Apple HQ, as it should be at any good campus. The park has seven cafes with the largest spread across three levels. This large cafe has balconies for people to eat on as well as large glass doors that can open completely on nice days for that inside, outside living kind of vibe, sliding glass doors along the exterior of the cafe extend the full four stories of the building to the roof weighing 440,000 pounds, 199580.6 kilograms.
Each they open and close quietly via mechanisms, hidden underground. Another room press a feature of this main cafe is its capacity to feed 15,000 people, every single lunchtime. And they take their food seriously at Apple for workers who want to take the cafe’s prize pizza back to their pods, Apple created and patented their very own pizza box that lets air and moisture escape. So the crest won’t get soggy. Now that’s the kind of office perk we can get behind. Steve jobs wanted a lot of glass and natural light included in the park. He got just what he dreamed of, because the building has the world’s largest curved glass panes. They’re 45 feet, 13.7 meters tall, and there are 800 on campus. Another area where the glass is well shown off is in the Apple auditorium or Steve jobs theater. The building is topped with the world’s largest carbon fiber roof.
And there’s also a 42 foot 12.8 meter high glass elevator. That’s estimated to be the tallest freestyle glass elevator in the entire world. The lobby alone cost about $12 million [inaudible] but it was job’s wish at the theater stand out like a Juul with the auditorium located privately underground. He definitely got his wish because he can’t miss it all in all the theater costs about $180 million to construct. The only disappointing thing about Apple park is that we’re not allowed to visit the ring itself is reserved for Apple employees and important persons. But for people who are curious about how it feels to be in the park, Apple constructed a visitor center right outside the HQ where guests can visit without a pass. It has an Apple showroom, an augmented reality area where people can tour the park with the use of Apple products and another cafe. The visitor center costs about $110 million, but since it’s brought tons of interest at Apple fans to the campus and offers many products for sale, it seems like it was another smart investment for the company.
When Steve jobs came up with the idea for Apple park, he didn’t just want nature to be a small part of the project, but a key component. This means he wanted the HQ to be sustainable and eco-friendly as well as resistant to natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding. One way the building is doing its part is by harvesting energy, from a rooftop solar farm that provides for about 75% of the campuses, total energy needs. They also have fuel cells to help power the rest of the campus to make the HQ feel like a real national park. Apple had 9,000 drought resistant trees brought in to plant around campus jobs was passionate about the new campus featuring indigenous flora, including fruit trees from the orchards he remembered from growing up in Northern California. Apple’s love for trees was also incorporated in the wood, used to construct the offices.
Every piece of wood on campus is a custom timber veneer made from recycled wood. Instead of real wood, the ring also has base isolation and a ground that protects it from earthquakes. The base isolation allows the building to move up to 4.5 feet, 1.37 meters in any direction without losing its vital services. So even a natural disaster can stop Apple’s employees from getting their jobs done. Apple park is also a building that breeds the natural airflow in the building completely gets rid of the need for any kind of air conditioning or heating the ring inhales air through soffits, the undersides of those canopies that are located all over the ring from their shafts that act like chimneys exhale, warm air back outside. While the buildings may have been expensive to construct. Apple is optimistic that it’s sustainable design choices that will help the company save resources on energy.
The main building is a world’s largest naturally ventilated building, and the rooftops are able to generate 17 megawatts of solar energy besides saving on resources and creating a sustainable office. Apple’s HQ has a positive effect of creating serenity for all of Apple’s employees. The park is technologically advanced and futuristic, but also grounded in nature and appreciation for the surrounding environment. This type of care, as well as caring for the mental and physical health of the many employees who call this campus, their office is what makes the rain unique in both appearance and practice. Now that Steve jobs has dreamed for Apple headquarters have been realized. The next step is for the park to inspire offices all around the world to step up and create a work hub fit for both the health of its employees and the health of our planet. Would you love to work at Apple park? Do you think all the extra innovation was necessary or did Apple go a little bit overboard?
