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Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

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Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#91
post #18
post #5

Not only will the new building become a tourist destination but it will be a prime tool for recruiting.

All the greenery and landscaping also made me wondering in what extent this new campus will be accessible to the general public. Will you be able to just go there and take a walk in Apple Park, or will there a big fence around it? In the presentation you see casual people walking and playing about.

I expected the council to demand that he make at least part of the campus open to the public. You know, if they weren't being fangirls over Jobs.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#92
post #65

Is it bigger than the Pentagon?

It's close, depending on what you mean by size. Looking at the Pentagon diagram on wikipedia and using the above estimates of 1100-1200 feet for the Mothership, it's about comparable in diameter. I'm fairly sure the Pentagon rings are thicker, though, so that probably contributes to it's ability to house 26k (employees + support personnel) instead of Apple's 12-3k.

The Pentagon also has more height, with 4 stories above ground and at least 2 below. Don't know if Apple plans on having stories below ground, there was no mention during the presentation, but not doing so would account for more of the difference.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#93
post #75
post #62

Just for perspective: Proposed Appleplex: 1.4 mil sq ft (?), 12-13k employees Pentagon: 6.5 mil sq ft (3.7 mil for offices), 26k employees Empire State Building: 2.8 mil sq ft, 21k (?) employees

Now I'm curious -- what's in the other 2.8 million square feet of the Pentagon?

Hallways, conference rooms, shops (there is a small mall in the Pentagon), more hallways, bunkers, monuments / military museums, and a bunch of other general use areas.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#94
post #45

I don't know, I worked in a campus with a huge courtyard in the middle, though smaller than this, and it was mostly wasted unused space. I think it actually makes different parts of the company feel more isolated from each other because the other side of the building is so far way, the middle almost feels like an intimidating wilderness that you stay away from. If instead you have multiple smaller buildings connected…

I suspect the middle courtyard will have a lot of features not shown in the design, including meandering pathways, benches and lawns for laptop jockeys, full wifi coverage, and maybe even an outdoor cafe (or two, or three). It's the job of a landscape architect to create an environment that is both inviting for those walking outside, and serene for those looking out the window. Somehow I doubt they'll screw it up. (E…

It reminds me of the Pentagon, which has the same sort of stuff along with food vendors. It was pretty busy at lunch time and seemed to be a popular place to have a walk and talk meeting.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#96
This isn't impressive to me. What would be impressive would be building a skyscraper in downtown SF. Being environmentally friendly isn't building a massive campus on a plot of suburban grassland. Apple likes to say they think differently, but this isn't different. It's just slightly nicer than most other headquarters in a suburban wasteland.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#97
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he also calls it 'human scale', while in the pictures the building looks huge: it's a kind of hollow frisbee, pentagon-style. Maybe it's because I'm from a small country, we don't have skyscrapers here ;-)

It's 4 stories high. Not a skyscraper, by any means. I'd bet the council would be a little touchy if it were any higher than that.

Yeah, people have houses that are 4 stories high. No big deal here, although I'm not sure how big the houses are out in Cupertino.

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#98
post #84
post #62

Just for perspective: Proposed Appleplex: 1.4 mil sq ft (?), 12-13k employees Pentagon: 6.5 mil sq ft (3.7 mil for offices), 26k employees Empire State Building: 2.8 mil sq ft, 21k (?) employees

One thing I cringed at in Jobs' presentation was framing the 4-story high design as "human scale". The Empire State Building is also human scale.

Human Scale has a different meaning in art and architecture than it does in scientific fields. In architecture, it simply means that the building is designed to fit well with the human senses.

Wikipedia has more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_scale

Re: Steve Jobs Presents His Ideas For A New Apple Campus

#99
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. Previously the place was used by HW, with some 9k employes. There will only be a 3k increase in number of workers, which as jobs said is about 20% more people. Sure, 20% is noticeable, but one should analyse the roads and connections to the campus to know how noticeable will those 20% more traffic be.

You say I'm wrong, then you admit 20% is noticeable and there may be congestion, and it's worth checking out. What kind of "wrong" is that? From 9k to 12k is a 33% increase. If we take the actual figure Jobs gave for comfort - 13k - it is an increase of 44%.

I apologize for the misleading reply.

Let's correct the numbers. Today there are 9.5k employees, in the future up to 13k. That is a 37% increase (according to the video at 9:20 its 40% ). Then at 16:37 Jobs claims that they will only be increasing the employment by 20%.

He also speaks at some point (towards the end) about a series of buses used to transport workers. Hence the increase in use of private transportation will probably not be at around 40%, but probably around 20%. (Buses do cause some traffic, but much less that cars).

Because this is a very large project I am pretty sure they have thought about the traffic issues, and wouldn't insist on building there if there would produce too much new traffic. Also the council would object to the idea if it would cause much traffic congestion.

Hence, I said that you are wrong about there being congestion due to the new influx of workers. If the 20% figure is correct and that they have thought about possible traffic issues, then there might not be a significant increase in congestion. However it will probably be noticeable. (Notice the difference between _noticeable_ and _significant_).

I live in Eastern Europe, and have very limited knowledge of the the transportation routes in Cupertino. I would very much enjoy the opinion of someone knowledgeable.

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