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A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

wired.com

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Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#221

Post by brudgers »

jimlawruk wrote: post #102
jonknee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requirements are made to be made exceptions for and Apple had $5b of leverage. They probably just wanted the parking.

Yeah. A simple donation to the local municipality would have gotten this requirement waived. I once heard of a company getting past height restrictions by simply buying the town a few new firetrucks.

The equipment loadout of the local fire service is often a factor in building height limits. For example there are building heights below which a fire service does not need ladder trucks but at a certain point, public safety demands ladder trucks be available.

Even if a fire service has ladder trucks, the existing ladder trucks may be berthed outside the area served by the local fire station and therefore the fire service cannot provide an appropriate response time and needs another ladder truck. Because ladder trucks are big, this may mean that the local fire station needs to be expanded to house the ladder truck.

Providing a ladder truck and possibly funds may, in some cases, remove the reasons for the height restrictions...with the premise that height restrictions are occasionally the result of careful consideration rather than or in addition to nimbyism.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#222

Post by jimlawruk »

thegranderson wrote: post #147
jimlawruk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. A simple donation to the local municipality would have gotten this requirement waived. I once heard of a company getting past height restrictions by simply buying the town a few new firetrucks.

In what way is this "donation" not a bribe? Just because it goes to the government at large vs. an individual?

A bribe is secret and typically illegal. This type of exception to the rule would be completely public and could be debated, discussed, voted on, etc.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#223

Post by valuearb »

linkregister wrote: post #198
jseliger wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no parking garage for the new bars and restaurants, so all visitors simply parked in the residents' neighborhoods This is a solved problem: Charge for parking and the shortage goes away. Meter technology is decades old and well understood. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...

When you become dictator, maybe that will be viable. In the meantime, what sane city council member is going to tell residents they need to pay for parking in front of their own townhouses?

Everyone would jump on board if the city would just allocate the parking revenues to the home or building owners.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#224

Post by microtherion »

matsemann wrote: post #36

I'd wish they were a bit more futuristic than having 9000 parking spaces. Why not offer buses from where their employees live or other means of transportation? It's easy to say that most people drive, but that's only because everyone always make that the most convenient mode of transportation. With some effort something else could be even more convenient.

Apple does offer all sorts of alternate commute options: Coaches that run all over the Bay Area, shuttles for the south bay, shuttle service to Caltrain/ACE, carpool arrangements. There even are multiple shuttle service to connect the various Apple buildings in Cupertino. Ultimately, much of the South Bay is not very walkable (I lived there for one year without a car, and 7 years without a driver's license of my own), so it's hard to compete with cars, but I'm pretty sure a large percentage of our SF/Santa Cruz commuters, if not the majority of them, are not taking their own cars.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#225

Post by valuearb »

Fricken wrote: post #178
linkregister wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like these people are being irrational. If driving is faster, then these folks will do so. Given the property prices in the Seattle area, they are probably as close as possible to work as their budget will allow. They're probably at the edge of their tolerable commute as it is.

Maybe as self interested individuals they aren't being irrational, but collectively as a civilization, it's irrational. The early proponents of the mechanized garden city were naive, and we've carried on perpetuating that naivete for 80 years now, because that's just the way we do it. What a mess. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging .

It's totally rational. Mass transit provides transport from points A to points B, C, and maybe D. Cars provide transportation to anywhere from anywhere. You regard this as irrational because you don't value individual liberty.

Could cars be more environmentally sound? Yes and we are on our way to making that happen.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#226

Post by linkregister »

valuearb wrote: post #223
linkregister wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become dictator, maybe that will be viable. In the meantime, what sane city council member is going to tell residents they need to pay for parking in front of their own townhouses?

Everyone would jump on board if the city would just allocate the parking revenues to the home or building owners.

Where has this successfully been implemented?

There's a similar mechanism to what you proposed, resident-only parking permits. This pits the business owners against the residents. It also means that a resident can't have their friends come to visit without risking a ticket.

The knee-jerk HN-ism of quick fixes doesn't work here.

The only actual solution is the long-term dual-pronged approach: parking structures in the interim, while improving public transit coverage overall.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#227

Post by valuearb »

Someone1234 wrote: post #214
adventured wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero chance that building doesn't last 50 years, whether it's still being used by Apple 50 years from now or not.

That isn't what the study I linked to says. Did you read it?

Yea, that's not much of a study. The authors didn't have enough data to really understand why buildings were getting demolished before 50 years. Defining them as "wood", "concrete" and "steel" is far too broad of categories, for one.

A steel warehouse that was put up with the lowest cost bid is easy to demolish and rebuild with better, newer materials/technologies after 40 years or so. A state of the art office building is not.

How old is the Empire State Building? Do you think it's getting demolished any time soon?

Do you really think building construction techniques and materials of 50 years ago are comparable to the techniques and materials used today, especially on the Apple Campus?

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#228

Post by dxhdr »

LynxInLA wrote: post #202
valuearb wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disappointed no pictures of the pods

I think this is one of the pods. It looks... tight. https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/apple-galle...

I can't tell what I'm looking at with all the mirrored surfaces. Looks like the inside of a vegas hotel room.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#229

Post by abakker »

snug wrote: post #211
abakker wrote: post #183

I do some small amount of woodworking on the side of my main job, and as a result I have a large envelope CNC router in my garage. I occasionally post ads for craigslist looking for odd jobs. About a year ago, I was approached via craigslist by a contractor working on this campus to help make some plywood parts for concrete forms that they couldn't figure out how to mark and measure on site with a jigsaw. They were t…

That is really cool! Do you have any pics or design mockups of what you sent to apple? If you can share

It was a 3rd party contractor working on the campus, and since it was subcontracted to me, I'd rather not share who I worked for. I'm not sure they'd want it advertised that they were sourcing from CL. :)

http://imgur.com/a/222IM there some some basic photos I have from my phone, though. All of these were made out of fire retardant plywood.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#230

Post by valuearb »

accountyaccount wrote: post #195
valuearb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather not have my kids under the control of my company.

Then don't. Corporate childcare isn't mandatory... just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't incredibly valuable to other working parents. I've considered employers I wouldn't have otherwise considered because the thought of on-site child care is incredibly appealing.

Child care is a competitive business that can almost always be provided better and cheaper elsewhere. So it's much better to use stipends to subsidize employee child care.

Having child care is also an expensive distraction and liability for management. Do you want to deal with employee complaints over childcare hours, personnel, facilities, etc, or do you want to spend your time thinking about how to better sell product and keep employee's employed? What happens when an employee accuses a child-care worker of hurting their child?

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