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A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

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Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#361

Post by akgerber »

valuearb wrote: post #225
Fricken wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is requiring every adult to spend thousands of dollars a year to fully engage in society and strictly limiting how property owners use their land to maximize ease of driving your definition of 'individual liberty'?

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#362

Post by komali2 »

hackunomatter wrote: post #282

At $5B for 12,000 employees, that works out to about $400,000 a pop. Each employee could have been given an apartment in many parts of the country... :-) I'm not criticizing, just admiring the cost.

It's fun to think of numbers that way, but on the other hand, many of those 12k are not employees that were here when construction started, and likewise many of the employees that were around at the beginning of construction are gone.

I think it's a bit excessive for a universally known company but I get the idea of wanting a monument. Having moved from Houston to Silicon Valley, I remember being mildly disappointed by for example Google's campus. Like, it's just a regular old office campus. Nice, of course! Very nice, next to shoreline ampitheater, lots of trees, etc. But, I mean, it's Google. Was I expecting rocketships? Maybe! I dunno. I certainly was expecting something other than just... a campus.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#363

Post by tajen »

kylec wrote: post #340
Someone1234 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a copout. Cupertino demands it because businesses have abused public streets before (e.g. relying on public parking for business purposes); if Apple had gone to Cupertino with an actual plan, they may have allowed fewer spaces, but since Apple didn't and just accepted the requirement it is because Apple has no plans to reduce it.

Has Apple ever said that they don't want to create all the parking spaces they're creating? Isn't it in their interest as an employer to provide ample parking for their employees?

No. Cars makes 15% of your employees angry in the morning because it's a passive-agressive activity; It makes them more expensive because they need a better car to demonstrate social status; It makes them lose time because decreasing the density of the city makes picking the kids from school a multi-mile epic; and it literally gives them cancer. Did I mention obesity?

A proper urbanist would have put the HQ on top of a hub of subway or tram lines, and you bet the managers' houses would be sorted by rank along the stations, the cleaning contractor being at the last station, as opposed to the current situation (richest farthest in the outback).

Of course, if you want happy productive employees within walking distance of their office, you don't build a centralized 15,000-job building with no residential area intersticed, so whoever signed off for such a building wouldn't understand walking distances, tram lines or subways.

And would certainly die from cancer.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#364

Post by komali2 »

larrymyers wrote: post #6
pplonski86 wrote: post #3

12000 people in one building - wow!

The one giant wart that makes this whole project depressingly not futuristic: 9000+ parking spaces. The amount of unproductive space devoted to the storage of cars is just mind boggling. Not much has changed in how people get to work. Single occupancy cars all burning fossil fuel and expelling C02. It may not be a fancy spaceship, but the 100 year old building I work at in downtown Chicago has indoor bike parking and…

I find that better than this recent nugget I read in either Palo Alto times, or Mountain View Voice, I can't recall, and I'm also paraphrasing from memory:

"When asked by city council about traffic issues and parking spaces for [some huge new google campus], [some google spokesperson] assuaged councilmembers with 'By the time it's done, we'll be bringing people in with self driving cars, and the local rail system in [Palo Alto / Mountain View] will have been built, so this will be a non-issue.'"

Judging from the tone of the story, this was considered totally acceptable by the city council. Like, some suit from google just says "nah don't worry about it, 5 years from now is the future, and we all KNOW what the future will be like! Eh? Eh?" Seems remarkably irresponsible, though I am totally for new development! The more the better. Let the tech capital of the world remain so.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#365

Post by wklauss »

Markoff wrote: post #274
wklauss wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much harder to estimate the demand of a child care center than that of a gym or a cafeteria. Not every employee will become a parent and those who do so will only have one or two children in the lifetime. On top of that, some would prefer an outside child care service, specially if the position has a lot of traveling involved (can your partner or caregiver bring the kid to campus when you are not there?) Even if…

> It's much harder to estimate the demand of a child care center than that of a gym or a cafeteria. Not every employee will become a parent and those who do so will only have one or two children in the lifetime. not every employee (most?) is interested in gym, so why provide gym? you can make survey or research to estimate what size of childcare you will need > On top of that, some would prefer an outside child care…

> just put in contract childcare ends same time as contract, simple as that, it's just bullshit excuse not provide option hiding it behind caring about well-being of employee

Not an excuse. Just one of the many logistics problems involved. What happens when you have to stay longer than childcare is open, etc...

Yeah, these problems also happen with third party child care but that's the point. It might be wiser and more efficient to subsidize an external option that to build an internal one. Not only for the company, for the employee as well.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#366

Post by paulcole »

threeseed wrote: post #281
valuearb wrote: post #220

“It’s an obsolete model that doesn’t address the work conditions of the future,” says Louise Mozingo, an urban design professor at UC Berkeley." Everyone should note that Louise Mozingo has criticized the Apple campus from not having large open floor plans where employees can stare at each other across narrow tables and "collaborate" by yelling to one another over their co-workers heads. She simply doesn't get how so…

> She simply doesn't get how software developers work. It's not just software developers. A significant percentage of the population are or lean towards being introverted i.e. social interactions do not make them necessarily happier or more productive. And experts have been saying that being creative requires some periods of interaction and some periods of solitude. Seems like office spaces should reflect that.

> introverted i.e. social interactions do not make them necessarily happier or more productive

Soon there will be more definitions of introversion than there are actual introverts.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#367

Post by detritus »

abakker wrote: post #357
detritus wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh now that's a lovely-looking machine! I love the way your width/x axis stepper is handled. Did you build her yourself?

Shout out entirely to Cory at CNC router parts. They designed it, I assembled it. Their electronics are REALLY nicely done, too.

heh, thanks - I've been on their site in the past and not quite appreciated what it is they can offer.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#368

Post by mc32 »

akgerber wrote: post #359
mc32 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit of damned if they don't and damned if they do. FB, GOOG get flack for their shuttle busses plus if you get there later in the day parking in MTV is dicey. At least if you wanna drive, you can, if you wanna ride the bike, no one's stopping you.

Except that the land use of Silicon Valley makes cycling dangerous and distances often too large to be practical for many.

True to some degree. But that only underscores why Apple was right to build more rather than fewer stalls.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#369

Post by pchristensen »

jdavis703 wrote: post #296
pchristensen wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the customers of the popular bowling alley don't park in the parking lot of the neighboring businesses. It's forcing every business to play nice with their neighbors, rather than free-ride off of them. Most mall parking lots are sized for the demand of the busiest day of the Christmas shopping season, and are consequently underused for most of the year.

Well then the next door business can either charge for parking and offer free parking validation after you buy something, or just have a tow truck waiting to tow people who park and don't enter the premises.

I'm not saying it's the right solution (I'm in favor of dynamic pricing of parking - google "Donald Shoup" for more info). But I got a degree in Urban Planning and that's what I learned was the rationale for municipal minimum parking requirements.

Keep in mind, the US had 200 million fewer people in 1945. More of America has been built since WWII than existed during it.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#370

Post by kuschku »

linkregister wrote: post #338
kuschku wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does. Make it so expensive that overall only 500 people (including those who live there) can afford to park there. Problem solved. And that’s how my city got $1/min parking spots.

Now you made it full circle to my original comment, "you can do this if you're a dictator. Otherwise, residents won't agree to pay for parking in front of their own homes."

No, I have not. The residents still get free parking, of course. If there’s more residents than parking spots, well, that sucks.
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