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A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

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Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#381

Post by icanhackit »

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.

I work in a flexible seating or "activity-based" work space. I get to sit near HR from time to time. When reviewing user feedback about the work space I've heard them say, I quote, "That guy is an introvert, of course he'd say that..." while shaking their heads. When reviewing training and information session feedback "Introverts are less emotionally intelligent than we are, they're bound to react that way." Finally when reporting on work space feedback results they say the response is "overwhelmingly positive" but never quote figures or provide a breakdown of responses.

Extroverts control the office space and culture, as they tend to gravitate to the kinds of fields/departments that coordinate those aspects. Working from home is our only hope, as they seem to have an almost militant distaste for personalities that don't blend with their vision of how things should be.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#382

Post by valuearb »

maaaats wrote: post #309
valuearb wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

730,000 people die in the US every year. Only 35,000 are killed in car accidents. Individually it wouldn't rank in the top ten causes of death. Auto fatalities per million miles driven have dropped by 95% since the 1920s, 86% since 1950, and over 50% since the 1980s. If people don't drive, all those million miles of transport will be taken up by Buses, Trains, Bikes, Walking, etc, all of which have their own death ra…

If people walked or biked, one would however save hundreds of thousands of lives because of lifestyle issues.

If people stopped eating red meat...

You can always find ways to save lives by making living suck more.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#383

Post by dismantlethesun »

valuearb wrote: post #232
dxhdr wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should the company spend millions a year on a perk you can take advantage of that I can't? You can absolutely take advantage of it, by raising a child.

I have two, but I'm not taking them to my employers childcare. I took them to a good childcare that I picked out competitively. And now they are in school. Company perks shouldn't be enjoyable by only a tiny minority of the company at any one time.

Well that's how all company perks are. Company gyms aren't large enough for literally all their employees to use at once, or even frequently interspaced over a single day.

Apart from coffee machines, and maybe food service... no physical location perk is capable of handling the entire staff.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#384

Post by valuearb »

linkregister wrote: post #351
valuearb wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sprawl is allowing another person the freedom to have a yard. But sure, we can shave a few seconds off your commute by forcing everyone into tiny apartments in this massive country with massive amounts of open space. I live in a state that appropriately funds it's freeways, so we don't have a cluster fuck. I seldom ever have to drive below 75 on the freeway.

Maybe one policy for an urban area doesn't fit for a rural area, and vice versa. Maybe... life is complicated and there's no intellectually easy solution for everything. (directed at both Fricken and valuearb)

There is always an easy solution. The hard part is finding an easy solution that's not wrong.

For example, having people pay directly for their road and mass transit use is an excellent easy solution, the hard part is addressing air pollution externalities. So toll roads, private mass transit and carbon/pollution caps/market.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#385

Post by valuearb »

akgerber wrote: post #361
valuearb wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

I'm anti-land use planning without compensation, so no.

If you want to inexpensively "fully engage" in society, go head and live in an apartment downtown or on a bus/train line. But don't restrict my ability to raise my kids in a home with a yard.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#386

Post by valuearb »

snowwrestler wrote: post #345
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.

Which also cuts in half the number of customers for the businesses. In urban planning, one has to be careful to solve the correct problem. The problem is not too many cars parked on a residential street. The problem is getting customers to businesses with minimal bad side effects. Any "parking solution" that kills the businesses to fix the parking is not actually a solution.

It won't kill businesses, it will move them. No business has the right to a specific location if it requires it's neighbors properties to.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#387

Post by valuearb »

jt2190 wrote: post #307
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…

> Everyone should note that Louise Mozingo has criticized the Apple campus... The quote from the article appears to be related to Apple Park's lack of a childcare facility. (I assume they can easily remedy this.) I can't find any of her criticism elsewhere. Mind sharing some links? (edit: Found something from 2011. No mention of the interior space though. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/10/entertainment/la-ca-..…

'For all the time and money sunk into the project, some in the architecture community question whether Apple has focused on the right ends. The campus is something of an exception to the trend of radically open offices aimed at fostering collaboration, said Louise Mozingo, a professor and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at U.C. Berkeley. Its central office building – a massive ring of glass frequently likened to a spaceship – could be a challenge just to navigate, she noted.

"It's not about maximizing the productivity of the office space, it's about creating a symbolic center for this global company," she said"'

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-campus-idUSKBN15M0CM

“Mainstream architectural trends are open office space to foster co-operation,” said Louise Mozingo, professor of landscape architecture and urban design in University of California, Berkeley, in an interview with Reuters. “At this point, Apple's new headquarters appears to be an alien.”

http://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/50051734.html

I suspect her quote from the new article has nothing to do with child-care, and was bastardized from her previous comments.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#388

Post by valuearb »

Markoff wrote: post #318
valuearb wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it was a while ago, but I think we estimated the cost around $500 a year, and our average cost per developer at $100k per year. IIRC we were paying around $20 per square foot, and the office sizes were small, like 8 by 8. So an extra 25 SF cost about $500 per year. You can make an office almost as small as a cubicle, the difference is you need space for a door to swing in, office walls are thicker than cubicle w…

oh, i am all for efficiency and destroying cubicles, but my point was you can't just make walls of cubicle higher, put there door and call it office, office most have normal size, window, i think 3.5x3.5m is the minimum i could call room/office and that's like 3 times bigger than 2x2m cubicle (generous, world not be surprised even by smaller one), which makes it at 215$/m2 per year 1700$ additional cost per worker, n…

My numbers are from 25 years ago, so cost per SF for similar is probably $30+ a foot now, and engineer costs are much higher, but the percentages stay the same.

A 3.5 meter by 3.5 meter room is what many call a "two man" office. We had essentially 2.8m by 2.8m single persons, again you only need a minor more space than a cubicle. Doorway (which a cubicle needs too but not a swinging doorway) and mildly thicker walls. The ventilation goes through the ceiling, power in the walls.

You can't always have an exterior window in every office, but you can have interior glass. It's important to have enough natural light in the hallway so that the interior glass carries the natural light into the offices. You don't want long dark hallways that can only be lit by artificial light. Break up the hallway with an exterior window or an office with windows and interior glass.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#389

Post by valuearb »

jshevek wrote: post #326
miranda_rights wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask which company it was? I'm making a mental list of companies to try to interview with once I graduate, and having offices sounds amazing.

The claim may well be manufactured from whole cloth

Which part?

What do find so fantastic about my story, that a CFO would think about team productivity in addition to costs? I will agree that CFO was a very rare and special bird.

Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus

#390

Post by valuearb »

jshevek wrote: post #324
jt2190 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone should note that Louise Mozingo has criticized the Apple campus... The quote from the article appears to be related to Apple Park's lack of a childcare facility. (I assume they can easily remedy this.) I can't find any of her criticism elsewhere. Mind sharing some links? (edit: Found something from 2011. No mention of the interior space though. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/10/entertainment/la-ca-..…

Are you suggesting that the parent took a quote out of context, in order to criticize a critic of the apple campus?

Obviously I didn't. Quotes provided.
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