Apple Campus 2 Work Continues as Lights Begin Turning On
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jasonklee
Suspended
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
No, that's a good question. A ring is probably the worst imaginable plan for moving through the space. You can cut across the middle of the ring if the weather is conducive but even then the journey is complicated and lengthened considerably if either your origin or your destination are not on the ground floor.
NT1440
macrumors P6
I agree, if some idiot were to just build a circular building and not factor in that people need to get around that would be a concern.
Now, considering that this building took 5+ years of planning and construction with one of the best architectural firms on the planet.....do we really think that no thought was put into this? When Apple went down to the level of partnering with firms to actually produce the machines needed to manufacture this building, is it really plausible to think that the actual transportation flow was never looked into?
toph2toast
macrumors 6502a
I'm sure that it will be secured, just not sure how far they will take it. I visited the current HQ a few years ago when I was in the area for work. I was able to park and walk right up to the visitor center without anyone stopping me. From the looks of it, you just needed a badge to get in. Though I'm sure the areas where the true R&D is happening would be harder to access than just a badge.
Same with Microsoft. I have a friend that works at their HQ outside of Seattle. He was able to take us into the building where they work on the Xbox (to what capacity, I don't know). No one said a word while we were there.
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
One mile.
toph2toast
macrumors 6502a
I thought there were tunnels underground that connected various parts of the building. I haven't followed the construction religiously, but I believe that's the case.
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
It's well known that this building was Steve's conception from word go. He always did fancy himself as someone who knows a lot about architecture but of course he couldn't work out the details so he called on Norman Foster to implement his idea. When a client insists on building to their own concept, an architect can only either walk away from the job, or try to mitigate the inherent flaws in the concept. Mainly, they do the latter. The flaws in this plan are glaringly apparent.
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Perhaps, but this will only help so much. It's a quarter mile across the ring.
NT1440
macrumors P6
I'll let the actual building speak for itself once the employees move in.
Armchair space planning is ridiculous when you don't have the blueprints and transportation plans available to you.
"
In the interview linked above, Foster explains that, when planning the layout of the building, the architects had to consider the different departments that would need to work together, and considered vertical proximities as well as horizontal ones.
"Of course, you have got an enormous range of skills in this building: from software programmers to designers, marketing, retail," he said. "But you can move vertically in the building as well as horizontally. The proximity, the adjacencies are very, very carefully considered."
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
Sure, the departments are going to be kept together as much as possible, but that's how any large office building would be planned for space utilization. The ring does not make that task any easier, only more difficult.
The site plan tells most of the story. For perspective, if the same amount of space was designed in a square plan of four stories, the footprint would be roughly 830 feet square. That plan would fit within the interior courtyard of this building. In fact it would fit twice. That's how spread out this building is in reality. The plan drove everything else, which is always a poor way to design.
You have a hoard of answers already, but here is my side. Think of the Pentagon. And some Parliament buildings around the world.
Maybe the idea is to keep people in different areas and communicate not by walking to the cubicle at the diametrically opposite end!
If the goal was access to colleagues scattered around the building, this would be a skyscraper! Another high-rise office building.
Lol right? Good one Apple. This must have been done in Motion.
SeaFox
macrumors 68030
He could have just manually set up the label movement and it would have have come out better. It's a straight horizontal pan after all.
Piggie
macrumors G3
Whilst I love the building and the care and quality Apple tried to put into it's devices, at the same time it makes me so sad that Apple are so far behind others, and ignoring anyone who is into "gaming" their Mac Pro is vastly over prices and out of date.
I don't understand what's gone wrong with Apple.
the could do so much better, yet only seem to care about fashion, and silly things now.
Such a shame.
I hope this will change
I don't understand what's gone wrong with Apple.
the could do so much better, yet only seem to care about fashion, and silly things now.
Such a shame.
I hope this will change
Jax44
Contributor
So, you're saying Apple Campus 2 is only 3320 square feet?
This is really stunning. I envy the people working there. Well, at least until the first first- and second-hand complaints start appearing after employees sit down at their desks and do their work.
If this was a Borg-cube shaped high-rise, we'd here people complain "But a ring is much better!".
As Tim Cook said: "Sitting is the new cancer". So, taking a walk now and then hasn't hurt anyone.
If this was a Borg-cube shaped high-rise, we'd here people complain "But a ring is much better!".
As Tim Cook said: "Sitting is the new cancer". So, taking a walk now and then hasn't hurt anyone.
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
Jax44
Contributor
Ah, it was worded as 830 square feet on the ground x 4 stories
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
Actually it was worded as "feet square." Maybe it would have been clearer if I'd said 830 feet on a side, but it's the same thing (and not the same concept as square feet).
Jax44
Contributor
Us Contractors say it as square feet, or 830 feet on a side.
IJ Reilly
macrumors P6
Well a square foot and a foot square are only the same when you are talking one. Larger than that and they are exponentially different. But I am so glad you didn't think I was saying something completely absurd.
Anyway... here's an interesting factoid about this building. The interior courtyard encloses 30 acres. For scale we could say that some cornfields are smaller than that, or talk in terms of 1.3 million square feet, but it is probably better grasped to say that it's more than four football fields wide, in any direction you cared to lay them down. It's a quarter of a mile walk from one side to the other, assuming the paths are spokes running right through the center point of the courtyard (which is doubtful). The scale is hard to fathom. I'd be interested in viewing this building in person and at ground level some day if only to see if my impressions of it are accurate, but for now I have a difficult time understanding how it will function or read for anyone not flying over it.
Where is the entrance to that freight elevator. We have seen the hole in the ground that was dug for the auditorium (and we can re-watch the videos of it). The whole area where the hole was dug has been covered up with the sculpted styrofoam and dirt with the circular entrance structure as the only access. Unless there is a freight elevator into circular structure and then a way to get something as big as car from the back of audience part of the auditorium (above which the circular structure is) onto the stage.
