Apple Campus 2 Qualifies for Expedited Environmental Review

[cvaldes]

Here we ******** go. AGAIN.

Fine.

Pretty much everything, from what I have seen thus far. It seems clear that the central organizing principle here is the circular plan. It's the kind of sexy form that Steve loved in consumer products, but plan abstraction is not necessarily a good place to start with architecture.

Several posters here have identified the most obvious issue, which is the vast scale of the building and the problems inherent with traveling from one side of the building to the other. Maybe Steve is having a conversation with God at this very moment and has persuaded Him to make rain fall less often over Cupertino, but failing intervention from the Almighty, employees in this building are going to be taking a lot of long hikes.

Probably underground radial tunnels. Not to mention that walking around in NorCal is pretty fine about 300 days of the year. The other sixty days? Well, it sucks, because there's this wet stuff falling out of the sky. It's not like it snows on the valley floor in Cupertino.

(Well, okay, it did in 1976, but it melted before lunchtime that day. And it was a sunny morning.)

Second, the circular plan means that the building will be essentially devoid of the kinds of visual cues that we use to know where we are. Every angle of the building will look the same, at least externally. Internally I'd expect much the same problem to occur. This building is probably going to be very disorienting.

Not much different than a square or any other shaped building. The various "zones" of the building could be color-coded (like parking garages). Also, the light from the windows will probably give people a clue to where they are in the building.

Third, the plan dictated the complete isolation of this building from the surrounding grid. It's a single, gigantic segregated land use requiring everyone who wants to do anything but work or eat at the company cafeteria to get into their car and drive somewhere else. A less dogmatic approach to architectural objectification would have accommodated a building more integrated into the place where it exists and have been more functional in that respect as well.

Christ, we are talking about Cupertino. There's no place to GO in Cupertino. There's no downtown area. Where are you gonna go? BJ's? Paul and Eddie's? The Target on Stevens Creek Boulevard? SQ Noodle? Vivi's? Yamagami's Nursery?

The two most crowded places at lunchtime on a weekday are the main post office and the Whole Foods Market express checkout lines.

Oh yeah, I guess you've never been to Cupertino. In that case, stop talking about it like you know the place.

Cupertino is a bunch of office complexes. The rest of it is nondescript residential areas that happen to feed some of the South Bay's best public school districts. Other than that, Cupertino is entirely nondescript.

Campus 2 has a shuttle service area for commuting to other complexes (like 1 Infinite Loop).

Those are just some of the more apparent functional issues with this building.

Yeah, keep criticizing a building in a town where you have never ever stepped foot in.

I've never been to Palookaville, but it probably isn't much different than Cupertino.

 

[firewood]

Several posters here have identified the most obvious issue, which is the vast scale of the building and the problems inherent with traveling from one side of the building to the other.

HP employees were often seen taking a quick walk around the entire current building complex after lunch. It's not that big, and the round building will be smaller in total circumference.

Third, the plan dictated the complete isolation of this building from the surrounding grid. It's a single, gigantic segregated land use requiring everyone who wants to do anything but work or eat at the company cafeteria to get into their car and drive somewhere else.

This site is right across the street from a large Asian market complex and several restaurants, and about 4 blocks walk from a medium size mall with department stores, theaters and restaurants. Maybe 4 blocks walk from a park and community garden. There were HP employees who could walk to work from the suburban neighborhoods across the street.

 

[pimentoLoaf]

In the future all corporate buildings of Microsoft will be large donuts.

Except Bill Gates will interfere with the designs, Google images of donut types, and build all kinds of odd shapes. Employees will be categorized as to which building they are assigned rather than job title. And then ...

Everyone will start doing it.

(Trust me. Donald Trump's Donut Palace will be overrated.)

 

[MattInOz]

Everything I've said could be said about a lot large developments, which doesn't make it wrong. In fact all of that prior experience tells us that it's right.

I don't need to give credit. This is a well known and very deeply studied issue, not an idea I've come up entirely on my own. Understand that this concept came from Steve Jobs, who despite his other talents was not an architect. This building will properly be seen as a monument to him, which I suspect was the idea. I doubt very much that this concept would have been suggested by any architect because of all the inherent problems it creates.

Given the right client this is the response I would expect from a good technically immersed Architect. Frankly any of the big name Architects have real science to their Art that is often ignored or not understood by the critics. When you start applying various aspects of building science then the design is very much supported.

Apple as a client are owner occupiers, this is very important as it changes the very nature of the project. Their prime focus is on the health and productivity of the staff, especially seeing this is the core of IP generating staff. Where a Speculative developer will be more about moving the product as soon as possible. Many of the Corporate parks started life as speculative ventures then sold outright to a single company, which are often not altered greatly to keep delivery time frames. So with many respects the Apple project is a rarity.

Biggest thing to help health and productivity is light natural, if not you mimic natural light. So lots of glass right. Well sort of lots of glass means glare, so try and get the light coming from lots of directions to reduce glare. This leads you towards narrow footprint. with glass two or more sides. Another thing you can do is curve or shape the glass, the effect this has on spreading the light around the space is amazing. So from a Lighting perspective this design is very high quality, maybe even the best achievable.

If you consider that Daylight is one of those things that people may not understand but their brain is tuned to use to determine a sense of direction then around the curve of the donut the sense of place will be already highly unique just because of the light. Indeed the dynamics of the light will make the spaces dynamic as well. Even "deep" in the building the people in this building should have a very sense of where they are.

Yes maybe there are issues that have to be traded off to favour the results, but the Architect wasn't truly committed to the concept they would have found away to manage expectations. All the problems noted seem to be good things to solve with Technology to get the benefits that the solution can bring of not relying on technology that isn't well suited to the task.

People want to right off the design as "Steve Folly", and maybe there is an element of "legacy" that has driven the design. Yes Apple are building something that only truly suits them, that is a big gesture of commitment to a future for Apple going forward not just the team post the Steve's but another couple of generations of Team Apple.

Sorry for the long post

 

[ramuman]

This "expedited environmental review" exemption is kind of a phantom advantage, I suspect. If the project is controversial and a suit is filed over the adequacy of the EIR, it could cut out a step of court review, but that's about all. If the court finds that the EIR is inadequate, they still go back to Square 1 -- revision, recirculation, recertification, and probably court oversight of the new document.

In any case the "coolness" of the huge ring plan will read only from the air. From where most people will see it the ring plan will not make any sense. This building is form over substance, unfortunately.

I'm guessing you've never been to IBM's TJ Watson facility. It's a beautifully designed semi-circle and many if not most of the rooms have natural sunlight coming in and it's actually a great place to be in. They even have clever translucent dividers (hard to describe) that let natural light in for anyone that isn't by a window.

Most buildings in the Cupertino/Palo Alto/Santa Clara region aren't skyscrapers and I'm pretty sure Apple is smart enough to group teams together so they don't need to walk half the circumference to talk to a colleague. If you work in a skyscraper, how many times do you go from a 49th floor to a 5th floor? I'm sure there'll be plenty of cafeterias and such all throughout.

I have an inkling this was Jobs re-interpreting his childhood as a series of places to work and then have a walk in between when you wanted to get away.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Let's be clear. "Respect" is not something that is in play here. Courtesy, civility, willingness to acknowledge someone else's point of view, yes. But deference because I should acknowledge that you have the superior opinion or a better understanding of design and usability? Please. You do not know me from Adam, nor do you have any understanding of the number of times in a week I deal with smug individuals who judge other people's work without the slightest understanding of the design brief or project parameters. That you dismiss the associated architects' work without having a firm grasp of their assignment, the manner in which teams and security at Apple operate, the details of the interior elements, the actual budget and the other projects parameters puts you in the category of a Monday-morning-quarterback. Might it be the inherent problems are being exploited to address an organizational need for privacy and secrecy? In other words, you may have played football in high-school and college and know all the rules of the game, but you were not actually on the field when this game was played. Nor do you seem interested in more than what is going on at the surface. So yours is an educated opinion, not an informed opinion and there is a world of difference between the two.

And yet, your opinion is neither educated nor informed, and still you believe it to be just as valid as any other. These 'net debates always seem to come down to the same formula eventually. I only wonder why it took so long for this card to be played.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Given the right client this is the response I would expect from a good technically immersed Architect. Frankly any of the big name Architects have real science to their Art that is often ignored or not understood by the critics. When you start applying various aspects of building science then the design is very much supported.

Apple as a client are owner occupiers, this is very important as it changes the very nature of the project. Their prime focus is on the health and productivity of the staff, especially seeing this is the core of IP generating staff. Where a Speculative developer will be more about moving the product as soon as possible. Many of the Corporate parks started life as speculative ventures then sold outright to a single company, which are often not altered greatly to keep delivery time frames. So with many respects the Apple project is a rarity.

Biggest thing to help health and productivity is light natural, if not you mimic natural light. So lots of glass right. Well sort of lots of glass means glare, so try and get the light coming from lots of directions to reduce glare. This leads you towards narrow footprint. with glass two or more sides. Another thing you can do is curve or shape the glass, the effect this has on spreading the light around the space is amazing. So from a Lighting perspective this design is very high quality, maybe even the best achievable.

If you consider that Daylight is one of those things that people may not understand but their brain is tuned to use to determine a sense of direction then around the curve of the donut the sense of place will be already highly unique just because of the light. Indeed the dynamics of the light will make the spaces dynamic as well. Even "deep" in the building the people in this building should have a very sense of where they are.

Yes maybe there are issues that have to be traded off to favour the results, but the Architect wasn't truly committed to the concept they would have found away to manage expectations. All the problems noted seem to be good things to solve with Technology to get the benefits that the solution can bring of not relying on technology that isn't well suited to the task.

People want to right off the design as "Steve Folly", and maybe there is an element of "legacy" that has driven the design. Yes Apple are building something that only truly suits them, that is a big gesture of commitment to a future for Apple going forward not just the team post the Steve's but another couple of generations of Team Apple.

Sorry for the long post

All corporate HQs are client-owned buildings, so by definition they are built to suit that client's criteria. These criteria are not entirely space and function-based. They are also corporate-image based, and this criterion alone has been the driver of many if not most corporate building designs. The bottom line here is that these buildings do not always get it right; some of them get it really wrong because corporate image and culture overwhelm the program. The critical reviews I linked cited a number of examples of corporate centers that came off poorly, and it wasn't because they were designed by second-rate architects.

In the real world, even rock star architects like Norman Foster don't operate like characters in an Ayn Rand novel. They are beholden to their clients, and the bigger the client the more beholden they will be. Many years ago I heard Buckminster Fuller say in a lecture that architects don't design buildings, corporations and bankers design buildings. He was right more than he was wrong.

Welcoming light into a building is a laudable goal, but you will find that vast areas of glass create another problem, particularly in the climate of California. Heat. The glass will have to be coated or tinted to cut down on solar radiation. Further, curving the glass on the entire building is not the only way to reduce glare. The plan of this building is a solution looking for a problem.

I am not writing off the building, nor am I calling it "Steve's Folly." I am pointing out some of the basic flaws in the concept, and backing up those points with architectural commentary along the same lines. I am pointing out where Steve's fingerprints can be found on the concept, something most seem to except as being a reality, not a matter of great speculation. Again, this is how buildings get designed in the real world. That does not mean that it's a good thing as far as architecture and planning are concerned, even when the company is Apple.

I know this is hard for some to accept, but believe it or not, Apple might have failed to take the best approach here. As many have pointed out, the building will say more about the 20th century than the 21st, and this is a disappointment to those of us who know architecture and otherwise view Apple as a company about the future, one of the few with real vision. Perhaps this places an unfair burden on them. That is arguable. Yet, this concept is still disappointing and the results will be judged on those criteria, whether we or they like it or not.

 

[flipperfeet]

And yet, your opinion is neither educated nor informed, and still you believe it to be just as valid as any other. These 'net debates always seem to come down to the same formula eventually. I only wonder why it took so long for this card to be played.

When one borrows their critique whole hog from others its hardly proof of expertise or a superior understanding of the topic at hand. (Seriously did you even consider the descriptor "retrograde" before reading the LA Times editorial?) When one continues to argue their point without digging into the details of a project and to dismiss one of Apple's key requirements for the project (privacy), as most critics have, as irrelevant to the architecture, to argue that the building should be more inclusive of amenities that are both nonexistent in the surroundings and counter to the design directive, makes your critique nothing more than an academic exercise and wearisome.

When one demands they be called an expert and then insults the other party in the dialogue it signals they are a douche. And finally when they get the response they were trying to illicit and feign it was there all along, they are a child.

Please, continue to bask in the glory of your own reflection. I am neither impressed by your understanding of architecture or convinced you have more to offer in this discussion than a parrot.

 

[IJ Reilly]

When one borrows their critique whole hog from others its hardly proof of expertise or a superior understanding of the topic at hand. (Seriously did you even consider the descriptor "retrograde" before reading the LA Times editorial?) When one continues to argue their point without digging into the details of a project and to dismiss one of Apple's key requirements for the project (privacy), as most critics have, as irrelevant to the architecture, to argue that the building should be more inclusive of amenities that are both nonexistent in the surroundings and counter to the design directive, makes your critique nothing more than an academic exercise and wearisome.

When one demands they be called an expert and then insults the other party in the dialogue it signals they are a douche. And finally when they get the response they were trying to illicit and feign it was there all along, they are a child.

Please, continue to bask in the glory of your own reflection. I am neither impressed by your understanding of architecture or convinced you have more to offer in this discussion than a parrot.

We have now entered the realm of desperate nonsense and personal attacks, the level of argument hell that comes after the inability to defend arbitrary and uninformed points of view. Sorry, but I don't play on that field.

 

[praetorian909]

I hope Cupertino doesn't get too upset because I hear Apple Campus 3 (aka the New Campus) is already in the works.

j/k

 

[imageWIS]

Or they can, you know, go outside and walk across the gigantic park in the middle...

And when it's raining? And you have to move oh, IDK electronic equipment from one place to another in the rain?

 

[blow45]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but this looks like Bentham's panopticon to me. There's a very upsetting totalitarian element to this simple form.

 

[bishopdante]

Much info here:

http://www.cupertino.org/index.aspx?page=1107

 

[MattInOz]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but this looks like Bentham's panopticon to me. There's a very upsetting totalitarian element to this simple form.

Image

I think you've missed an important aspect of the Panopticon.

The idea was a single guard could stand there and look anywhere without being seen. So that an inmate would be aware that he could be observed but never aware of when he was observed. It would have to be a tower not a nice frilly glass roofed gazebo. The upper back decks in those rendering would generally not be observable.

The apple scheme doesn't even have a central element it's just a big park.

 

[MattInOz]

All corporate HQs are client-owned buildings, so by definition they are built to suit that client's criteria. These criteria are not entirely space and function-based. They are also corporate-image based, and this criterion alone has been the driver of many if not most corporate building designs.

Yes they get adapted, much like the new Facebook building. There is also much that can be done with Interior Design again the new Facebook HQ. That is very different to the Company commissioning a building from Scratch and giving the company the ability to drive how trade off are valued.

Do you think Facebook really want to be in precast poky windowed box?
Still they have made the most of the interiors and the light on offer.

 

[magbarn]

they should invest that money and bail out California from going bankrupt lol

You do realize the best treatment for an out of control credit card spender is not to enlarge their credit line? The fact that this project which is going to give millions of additional taxes to the state and the potential to bring in the 'right' immigrants (Ones who actually pay for themselves instead of using up more revenue than what they bring), has to go through multiple layers of environmental green tape shows you why my state is bankrupt.

 

[WordMasterRice]

I believe it is counterclockwise

Most places outside of the US use anti-clockwise, not counter clockwise.

 

[doobybiggs]

Most places outside of the US use anti-clockwise, not counter clockwise.

why?

 

[thelink]

Most places outside of the US use anti-clockwise, not counter clockwise.

I see....

----------

why?

Instead of asking yourself why, ask yourself why not.