Apple Campus 2 Work Continues as Lights Begin Turning On

[IJ Reilly]

You actually did say something absurd. A 830 foot deep floor plate would offer horrible daylight conditions, no access to views, and illogically long HVAC runs to name a few problems with your suggestion. Even at 400 feet to allow for central cores, the issues with your illogical suggestion remain. The tone of your comments suggests that you know something about building design and space planning. The content reveals the truth that you know very little.

It wasn't even remotely a suggestion, it was a means of comparison. The tone and substance of your comment suggests something too.
[doublepost=1475345951][/doublepost]

Well sure, if you see walking as an issue. If you dont, if you want active employees, then it's not a problem anyway.

As per the rest of my post, most staff are likely to interact with people quite close to them, the same as any other office based environment. Some staff may walk more than others due to their role, but normally people work in teams and where a team is dispersed technology then comes to the fore. The shape of the building is sort of irrelevant once you hit a certain population and find you can't have absolutely everyone sitting next to those they work with (and a campus catering for 11k cars is a big one).

Square, rectangular or donut shaped, if you need to walk to another team then you need to walk and get away from the desk. The shape of the building might add a bit of distance, but let's not think that adopting a different shape immediately puts everyone close to one another when you're catering to 10,000 people.

Frankly I'd prefer that building with stacks of natural light and an open atmosphere to some rectangular thing where you are just as likely to get lost, if not more so, and the majority of staff will be lucky to be facing an external window, assuming their room has windows at all.

I don't see walking as an issue, so much as I am pointing out the apparently deliberate effort (or unintended consequence?) of this design, which is to double or quadruple the length of trips through the building from at least their theoretical minimums. This seems like a far less than ideal place to start space planning. The ring plan is used seldom in architecture, for a reason. It offers no inherent advantages over any other plan.

Building one on this scale only serves to point out the problems, another of which is it is inherently disorienting. The designers will have to incorporate orientation devices into the design to overcome the issue that it will look exactly the same from every viewpoint. Again this is what happens when you start with plan as a guiding rule then try to make it work, rather than allowing function to dictate plan. Architecture has faced dogmatic approaches before and has lately rejected them, so it's disappointing to see dogma crop up here on such a massive scale.

Let's be honest about it, this is Steve's building. He wanted it to be an object, and that's exactly what he got. Unfortunately the best buildings don't start as objects, they grow out of how they will be used.

 

[manu chao]

Huh?

(MR maybe looking for a longer post - can't do that here.)

Sorry, that was an accidental post, I wanted to make the argument that somewhere on Earth it might have already been October but then realised that the timestamp of the first forum post, ie, the one containing the article, was different than the timestamp on the article on the main page and abandoned that idea but must have accidentally posted this single line.

 

[Keirasplace]

Not as bad as the current campus seems like a pretty low bar for a brand new building costing billions. I know, Steve had a passion for walking himself, which is the other apparent theory behind this spreading out. Make 'em walk, and if they can't hack it, then tough. Maybe that's how they will cull out the herd.

But seriously. A half a mile isn't a lot, but it will take an average fast walker about ten minutes to cover. Most people tend to stroll, so call it fifteen. Each way. Steve probably thought of walking as productive time, but then his job description was talking to people while he was bolting off to see someone more important. How that will work for thousands of employees with more modest job descriptions, I am unsure.

Oh, and that courtyard, all 30 acres of it. A person could get lost in a space that large, especially when every direction they look they see the same thing.

Somebody made a good funny the other day calling the building Earth's home button. True story. It will look neato cool from outer space. From down here where the humans live, not so much, I think.

You also have to realize that most of those people were a lot further away, in different buildings, BEFORE.

Also, a Building is not just a box you put pêople into. There is more factors than just how close they are to the cafeteria, we're not just talking Ford 1915 like efficiency here.

By all measures, this will be a very pleasant place to work at.

 

[Larry The L]

Now if only they would put so much effort into the Mac lineup

That makes absolutely NO sense. They are two completely different endeavors. I guess you want Apple to do only one thing at a time. Work on your Mac lineup and stop everything else. You really need to gain some reality testing and look at the bigger picture.
[doublepost=1475361269][/doublepost]

I wonder how they are going to handle that HUGE water fountain being that there is a drought in California and I've seen many fountains turned off across the state.
I'm sure it's reclaimed water...but still.

What do you mean by "but still"? If they recirculate the water, what is the problem? There are fountains throughout the state, many on government grounds. We still water our lawns. We still do many things with water, while we try to conserve. What you are proposing is frankly absurd in the extreme. It's sad you can't see that.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You also have to realize that most of those people were a lot further away, in different buildings, BEFORE.

Also, a Building is not just a box you put pêople into. There is more factors than just how close they are to the cafeteria, we're not just talking Ford 1915 like efficiency here.

By all measures, this will be a very pleasant place to work at.

A building is also not a ring you put people into. But that was my point from the very start, was it not? Comparing it to how bad it was before surely isn't a measure of success. But I said that already too, didn't I? Probably the only thing more circular than this building is this discussion.

At this stage we have no measures of how pleasant it will be the work there.

 

[Keirasplace]

A building is also not a ring you put people into. But that was my point from the very start, was it not? Comparing it to how bad it was before surely isn't a measure of success. But I said that already too, didn't I? Probably the only thing more circular than this building is this discussion.

At this stage we have no measures of how pleasant it will be the work there.

Yes, comparing it to how it was before IS a measure of success.
That was the first goal of the whole operation.
Apple was leasing space all over the area and people were spending much time travelling between those buildings.

Someone working in parts of this circle is certainly no worse when it comes to working with immediate colleges
and a lot better when working with other departments.
Anyone who has had to drive around the area can attest to this.
A few minute walk in a spacious building surrounded by greenery is no contest.

Those surrounding made to Apple's specs (instead of using someone's old space) will be more adapted to their needs; thus they will objectively be an improvement. Just like a bespoke suit is a better fit than an off the rack one.

There is no reason to believe Apple didn't apply their attention to design and function to this building, so

when it comes to amenities, light, this building is again a vast improvement compared to anything anyone there had.

Coming from someone whose argument is just big pile of straw men, your comment are a non sequitur.

 

[Smigit]

The ring plan is used seldom in architecture, for a reason. It offers no inherent advantages over any other plan.

I'd imagine the main reason that the shape isn't used is it isn't cost efficient, but for Apple thats not a problem. If you are a firm leasing office space (which accounts for a lot of offices out there which isn't owned by the occupant) then you'll likely be selling based on square foot of usable office area, so having 3/4 of the surface area as grass isn't a good use of money, at least if you want to be cost or profit conscious. Most companies don't have the budget or real estate footprint that Apple has to work with here. If they did, perhaps such buildings would be more common. A campus costing $5 Billion plus is out of the question for 99.999% of companies.

Fit out and walking distances seem like relatively minor issues to me in the end of the day. Heck, getting from A to B crossing the entire complex (as a worst case scenario) might be better than a large company in a skyscraper where you have to line up to use an elevator. I still think day to day staff won't have to travel a lot.

Other benefits to the larger area would be the ability to spread security gates (if they use them) as well as things amenities such as cafeterias etc to more readily distribute staff and avoid establishing mass grouping places.

Building one on this scale only serves to point out the problems, another of which is it is inherently disorienting.

I think it'll be OK. Stadiums and entertainment arenas have similar designs and people find their seats. They'll have some system be it maps that designate a North/South wing which people will pick up, or possibly combine it with some numbering system or whatever for different regions. I can't imagine its much or any worse to a huge open plan office like Facebooks and one needing to describe where in that mass of people someone is situated. Again, staff will get to know the areas they frequent often and reception will point visitors and the odd lost staff member where to go. Again, seems to be a largely non issue after ones worked there for a week.

The Circle can be a benefit here too. Don't know where Wing 27 is (or whatever they call it)? Walk the perimeter. Many other offices are more maze like. At least with a circle you are going to pass the area even if you have zero idea where it sits. An efficient way to find things? Surely not. That's why they'll have signs and maps (no different to other offices, shopping malls etc with conventional designs).

 

[DotCom2]

That makes absolutely NO sense. They are two completely different endeavors. I guess you want Apple to do only one thing at a time. Work on your Mac lineup and stop everything else. You really need to gain some reality testing and look at the bigger picture.
[doublepost=1475361269][/doublepost]
What do you mean by "but still"? If they recirculate the water, what is the problem? There are fountains throughout the state, many on government grounds. We still water our lawns. We still do many things with water, while we try to conserve. What you are proposing is frankly absurd in the extreme. It's sad you can't see that.

It's called evaporation. Check the facts please.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yes, comparing it to how it was before IS a measure of success.

No, it isn't. If you don't understand my points, then say so.
[doublepost=1475384603][/doublepost]

I'd imagine the main reason that the shape isn't used is it isn't cost efficient, but for Apple thats not a problem. If you are a firm leasing office space (which accounts for a lot of offices out there which isn't owned by the occupant) then you'll likely be selling based on square foot of usable office area, so having 3/4 of the surface area as grass isn't a good use of money, at least if you want to be cost or profit conscious. Most companies don't have the budget or real estate footprint that Apple has to work with here. If they did, perhaps such buildings would be more common. A campus costing $5 Billion plus is out of the question for 99.999% of companies.

Fit out and walking distances seem like relatively minor issues to me in the end of the day. Heck, getting from A to B crossing the entire complex (as a worst case scenario) might be better than a large company in a skyscraper where you have to line up to use an elevator. I still think day to day staff won't have to travel a lot.

Other benefits to the larger area would be the ability to spread security gates (if they use them) as well as things amenities such as cafeterias etc to more readily distribute staff and avoid establishing mass grouping places.

It isn't used because it's poorly space efficient, especially on this scale, a problem compounded by the gigantic interior courtyard.

I think it'll be OK. Stadiums and entertainment arenas have similar designs and people find their seats. They'll have some system be it maps that designate a North/South wing which people will pick up, or possibly combine it with some numbering system or whatever for different regions. I can't imagine its much or any worse to a huge open plan office like Facebooks and one needing to describe where in that mass of people someone is situated. Again, staff will get to know the areas they frequent often and reception will point visitors and the odd lost staff member where to go. Again, seems to be a largely non issue after ones worked there for a week.

The Circle can be a benefit here too. Don't know where Wing 27 is (or whatever they call it)? Walk the perimeter. Many other offices are more maze like. At least with a circle you are going to pass the area even if you have zero idea where it sits. An efficient way to find things? Surely not. That's why they'll have signs and maps (no different to other offices, shopping malls etc with conventional designs).

Stadiums are designed for people to sit and watch an event, so that form is dictated by the function. Though since you bring it up, have you ever seen baseball played in a football stadium? Or hockey in baseball park? It's been done, but it's a mess. In fact during the '60 and '70s the theory in the design of stadiums was to make them multipurpose, for both football and baseball. They turned out to be lousy places to play or watch either sport. Most of these stadiums are now hammered into dust. Different needs call for different solutions. Meeting functional requirements first and foremost, that's the basic purpose of architecture.

A ring is by no means an ideal plan for a building of any scale because it creates problems that would not have existed if functional requirements dictated the plan, rather than the other way around. The result is the need for these issues to be addressed by other means. The navigational issues alone created by a building that looks exactly the same from every viewpoint are hardly trivial, and it was certainly not dictated by Apple's needs. The bottom line here is Steve wanted a ring so he got a ring. I'm sure it will look totally cool from the air. I may fly up there some day just to see it that way. But from the ground, it will be the definition of monotonous.

 

[Piggie]

It wasn't even remotely a suggestion, it was a means of comparison. The tone and substance of your comment suggests something too.
[doublepost=1475345951][/doublepost]

I don't see walking as an issue, so much as I am pointing out the apparently deliberate effort (or unintended consequence?) of this design, which is to double or quadruple the length of trips through the building from at least their theoretical minimums. This seems like a far less than ideal place to start space planning. The ring plan is used seldom in architecture, for a reason. It offers no inherent advantages over any other plan.

Building one on this scale only serves to point out the problems, another of which is it is inherently disorienting. The designers will have to incorporate orientation devices into the design to overcome the issue that it will look exactly the same from every viewpoint. Again this is what happens when you start with plan as a guiding rule then try to make it work, rather than allowing function to dictate plan. Architecture has faced dogmatic approaches before and has lately rejected them, so it's disappointing to see dogma crop up here on such a massive scale.

Let's be honest about it, this is Steve's building. He wanted it to be an object, and that's exactly what he got. Unfortunately the best buildings don't start as objects, they grow out of how they will be used.

So in a nutshell, this building, exactly duplicates Apples key concept of it's hardware for the past few decades.
Form over Function. It's not how well it works or how practical is it, or how generally GOOD as a device it is.
It's how it looks that is they No.1 over riding point.

Note: The Apple II was great and did not suffer this.

 

[SpectatorHere]

You can tell this is a Steve Jobs project. There's vision and real forethought. Also, you can tell it's Jobs because it isn't easy or what anyone else is doing.


Now, compare that to the dumpster fire that is everything else Apple is doing. With no Steve Jobs, they're the GM of tech. Everything is derivative, and everything is done by committee.


It's so amazing what a difference one person can make.

 

[IJ Reilly]

So in a nutshell, this building, exactly duplicates Apples key concept of it's hardware for the past few decades.
Form over Function. It's not how well it works or how practical is it, or how generally GOOD as a device it is.
It's how it looks that is they No.1 over riding point.

Note: The Apple II was great and did not suffer this.

If you say so. The point I'd add here is it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to approach designing a building the same way as a consumer product. In architecture, starting with the premise of purity of form or an aesthetic statement is a pretty reliable formula for ending up with a bad building.

BTW, in thinking about flying over this building in order to see it the way Steve intended, I checked the aeronautical charts. Basically it can't be done, because the site is in the controlled airspace for San Jose.

 

[Bacillus]

The dish-architecture has analogies with the MacPro: round, fixed, not expandable, mediocre space, limited accessibility.
Great design in need of a fix from day 1 (which is about not to happen...)

 

[Piggie]

If you say so. The point I'd add here is it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to approach designing a building the same way as a consumer product. In architecture, starting with the premise of purity of form or an aesthetic statement is a pretty reliable formula for ending up with a bad building.

BTW, in thinking about flying over this building in order to see it the way Steve intended, I checked the aeronautical charts. Basically it can't be done, because the site is in the controlled airspace for San Jose.

Well, one could say that for a business, a key part is the ability for people to move from one area to another in the shortest distance and quickest time possible.
Why make a business building less efficient? Because it's pretty?
I can accept building are made as statements, and for their looks, but I'm accepting that, this may not be the most efficient shape.

 

[C DM]

Well, one could say that for a business, a key part is the ability for people to move from one area to another in the shortest distance and quickest time possible.
Why make a business building less efficient? Because it's pretty?
I can accept building are made as statements, and for their looks, but I'm accepting that, this may not be the most efficient shape.

One could say that for a company shortest distance and quickest time possible isn't necessarily the only key part and while important can still be balanced with various other considerations.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well, one could say that for a business, a key part is the ability for people to move from one area to another in the shortest distance and quickest time possible.
Why make a business building less efficient? Because it's pretty?
I can accept building are made as statements, and for their looks, but I'm accepting that, this may not be the most efficient shape.

Maximizing efficiency doesn't need be the overriding consideration either but it should at least be near the top of the program. Even as a statement, I am not sure what this building is saying. I suspect it's going be more interesting visually from inside than out but for certain the most striking aspect of its design, the basic organizing principle, won't read to people on the ground.

 

[matty1551]

Thanks MacRumors for including my video!

 

[roboats]

Wild question: Could Apple let a car roll onto the stage there? My guess would be no, during the construction there were no tunnels visible leading to the underground auditorium.

There's a service tunnel in the plans. It's definitely possible! Take a look at the page from the plan below:

 

[derbladerunner]

Tesla: Building the world's biggest battery factory and the world's largest solar panel factory so they can turn the entire transportation and energy industries on its head, providing everyone in the world with inexpensive, clean power.

(...)

You're selling Elon Musk short if you think he's "the next Steve Jobs". Elon Musk is basically Tesla, Edison, the Wright Brothers, Einstein, Vanderberg, Hawking, Von Braun, Boeing, Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs, all rolled into one. Granted, he had all of those giants to stand on, but so did everyone else alive today, and I don't see anyone doing half as much as he is.

Two of Elon's Musk companies will probably be broke before the end of the decade (Solarcity and Tesla), at least if there's a downturn and investor money gets tight.

Elon Musk is the master of hype.

Look beyond the hype - their balance sheet is broken. Tesla needs fresh money every few quarters from large external investors to stay afloat:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/tsla/financials/cash-flow/quarter

They add more and more debt.

Soon Tesla has to bail out Solarcity (if the merger passes) - of course Elon Musk will deny all that and calls it a "great merger" because of his large personal stake in SolarCity.

And that's the situation without any direct competition. Only Tesla sells you longer-range, high-end EVs today.That will soon change:

By 2020, every large car maker will offer customers long-range electric cars in all price categories.

See the news from Paris this week: Audi SUV, Jaguar SUV, Mercedes EQ, VW i.D., Renault Zoe, Chevy/Opel Bolt/Ampera-E etc. etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...lead-charge-to-end-electric-cars-niche-status

We will see how Apple fits into all this and if they ever start selling electric cars, but you are selling Tim Cook and his team short if you think they are not working on new product categories (also see Cook's recent comments on Augmented Reality).

In contrast to Tesla, Apple makes money every quarter and only talks about new products once they are ready to go on sale.

Just because Apple stays quiet about unannounced products (car or transport service, augmented reality devices or whatever it might be...) doesn't mean they are asleep at the wheel.

 

[lkalliance]

One could say that for a company shortest distance and quickest time possible isn't necessarily the only key part and while important can still be balanced with various other considerations.

When the company revealed the design, one of the points that Mr. Jobs made was that he wanted the space to create casual "run-ins" between people in disparate departments, that those kinds of accidental meetings contribute to the vitality and creativity of a company. I don't know specifically that the overall shape of the building is to that purpose, perhaps it is. But I feel that most things in an enterprise that large are thought through. I'm confident that the issues being raised in this thread were considered carefully.

 

[IJ Reilly]

When the company revealed the design, one of the points that Mr. Jobs made was that he wanted the space to create casual "run-ins" between people in disparate departments, that those kinds of accidental meetings contribute to the vitality and creativity of a company. I don't know specifically that the overall shape of the building is to that purpose, perhaps it is. But I feel that most things in an enterprise that large are thought through. I'm confident that the issues being raised in this thread were considered carefully.

Designing spaces for people to mix is one of the oldest architectural problems in human history dating back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, who called them agora. The Romans called them forums. Later in history they developed into piazzas or squares. Not a ring among them. I guess Steve thought he'd come up with a solution that eluded the Greeks and Romans and everyone who followed over a few millennia in between. What are the chances of that, I wonder?

 

[sn1p3r845]

Thanks MacRumors for including my video!

Are you the one responsible for the bad motion tracking?

 

[C DM]

Designing spaces for people to mix is one of the oldest architectural problems in human history dating back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, who called them agora. The Romans called them forums. Later in history they developed into piazzas or squares. Not a ring among them. I guess Steve thought he'd come up with a solution that eluded the Greeks and Romans and everyone who followed over a few millennia in between. What are the chances of that, I wonder?

More than one way to skin a cat as they say.

 

[IJ Reilly]

More than one way to skin a cat as they say.

Sure, you could always try to convince yourself that it isn't actually a cat.

 

[bmacir]

Tesla: Building the world's biggest battery factory and the world's largest solar panel factory so they can turn the entire transportation and energy industries on its head, providing everyone in the world with inexpensive, clean power.

Space X: Building the world's largest rocket so we can colonize Mars and become a multiplanet species.

Apple: Building a large office building so they can continue iterating on products that have hardly changed in the last decade.

Pixar: Toy Story 4!

There is no such thing as inexpensive clean power.

Tesla cars use batteries which are expensive to build, pollute and need power to be recharged.

As for Apple and it's campus, I can't immagine using any other software other than Apple's, so I am happy they have a large office building to iterate on products that have had a huge impact on the industry the last decade.

Think just for a second how ugly and difficult to use were PCs, phones and tablets and how Apple changed every thing was wrong and how it revolutionised the industry.

Now think of Tesla, would the car industry be so different without Tesla? did Tesla revolutionise the way we use and think cars? I am not so sure....