you see much architecture ?
You read much about the new campus, beyond just looking at the pics posted on rumour sites..?
Eg:
To achieve its goals of a “net-zero energy” campus, the roof of the spaceship will hold 700,000 square feet of solar panels, enough to generate 8 megawatts of power. (That’s enough to power roughly 4,000 homes.) Apple says it’s negotiating contracts for additional solar and wind power. To keep consumption down, the company plans to install “climate responsive” technology. Judging from the drawings, this will include window treatments that automatically open or close to let in just the right amount of light, wind, and fresh air to maintain a comfortable temperature. Apple will likely make liberal use of Solatubes—skylights that are used to shunt outdoor light into internal offices—and huge, airplane propeller-size fans made by companies such as Big Ass Fans in Lexington, Ky., that move lots of air without using much energy.
The true expense of the campus lies not in green tech, though, as much as the materials—as well as what product designers call “fit and finish.” As with Apple’s products, Jobs wanted no seam, gap, or paintbrush stroke showing; every wall, floor, and even ceiling is to be polished to a supernatural smoothness. All of the interior wood was to be harvested from a specific species of maple, and only the finer-quality “heartwood” at the center of the trees would be used, says one person briefed on the plan last year.
The main building will also be groundbreaking in how it’s assembled. While the structural shell will be erected on site, the glass that forms the exterior walls will be bent and framed by Seele in its factory in Gersthofen, Germany. “It’s something like 6 kilometers of glass,” says Peter Arbour, an architect with Seele, who says that no company has attempted to use panes as large—certainly not curved panes—in anything approaching this scale. “Normally we talk in terms of square feet.”
