The Apple headquarters is among the most expensive buildings in the world, with a total cost of upwards of $5 billion.
The building’s construction alone took more than five years, which added up to an eight-year completion time. The structure has a unique design that was created by Jobs himself. Let’s explore the features that this structure has to offer.
General Information
Named Apple Park, the Apple headquarters is a site to behold. The building covers an area of 176 acres, and surprisingly, over 80% of it has been dedicated to green space. The main building is officially called “the ring,” and for good reason since it’s well in the shape of a ring. In the center of it is a lush green park—a park inside a park.
Apple Park might have a super futuristic design, but plans for its construction were actually made back in 2006 by the Apple founder, Steve Jobs. The top of Apple Park is covered with solar panels. Electricity from these solar panels accounts for 75% of the energy needs of the building and is a testament to Apple’s dedication to sustainability and eco friendliness.
This four story work of art is also resistant to earthquakes and is built to cater to 12,000 employees. The circular spaceship is huge, with over a one mile circumference, employees can walk from one to the other, or they can take the on campus bus; bikes are also available once again, contributing to the sustainability of it all.
Under Apple Park, there’s a two story garage, so employees can drive in and out of the building without disrupting the view. Gray colored bites are also available in case you don’t want to walk down to the parking lot. Apple Park has been designed to maximize employees’ efficiency and promote as much innovation as possible. To do this, the building has been shaped in a way that promotes employee interaction.
Several steps have been taken in this regard, the biggest being the addition of glass walls. Apple has taken a different approach to workspaces as compared to traditional offices. While traditional offices have small cubicles for each employee to sit and work in, Apple Park offers open office space to encourage the free flow of ideas.
This also enables employees to socialize with each other so they don’t get bored and burnt out working all day. People do have some concerns regarding this since the transparent walls are easy to walk into If you’re distracted. In fact, two employees actually had to visit the hospital after bumping face first into the walls.
After this incident, employees stuck sticky notes on the walls to make them more noticeable. However, the posted notes were taken down since they disrupted the building’s design.
The Garden
The center of Apple Park is covered with over 9,000 drought resistant trees and quite a few orchards. Jobs was a fan of the foliage work done at Stanford University and actually went ahead and got one of theirs.
To design the garden, various indigenous trees were used, including fruit trees, including cherry, apricot, olive, and, well, you guessed it. Apples have been planted. Studies have shown that plants are good for both reducing stress and increasing innovation, and Apple is using this to the maximum. Apart from all the trees and orchards
Apple Park also has an artificial pond, which just like the building it’s present in, is a perfect circle,
Single Restaurant
instead of multiple restaurants throughout the building. Apple Park has only one main restaurant. There are several smaller cafes, but when it comes to restaurants, there’s only one.
This decision to have only one restaurant means that employees have more and more opportunities to interact with each other and discuss new ideas. Let’s talk about some of the other buildings that Apple Park features.
1 – The Steve Jobs Theater
The Steve Jobs Theater, or as it’s now called, the Apple Auditorium, is a 1000 feet theater in Apple Park.
This theater has the world’s tallest free standing glass elevator at 42 feet high. Apple achieved this feat by using chemically treated glass. However, being the best at just one thing wasn’t enough for Apple, so they also added the world’s largest carbon fiber roof at the top. The innovation promotion steps seem to be working.
Interestingly, the Steve Jobs theater is completely underground, with only the top curved glass dome being above ground, but at the same time, it’s located on the highest hilltop in Apple Park as a sign of respect for Steve Jobs. Looking at the building, you might be confused by the lack of support beams.
But here’s the fun part: Apple designed the building so that the curve glass walls act as the support beam. This is also why the roof is made of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is super lightweight, but durable at the same time. The Steve Jobs Theater looks just as futuristic as the ring, and if you’ve seen the latest Apple event, you probably saw the new iPhone being announced in it.
2 – Rainbow stage
Located in the garden is a rectangular structure with a rainbow-colored stage. The stage is used mostly for announcements and performances. The colors used on the stage are exactly like those of the original Apple logo.
The stage was designed by Jonathan Ive and Foster and Partners. It’s one of the most recognizable structures in Apple Park and can be seen from pretty much any spot on.
3 – Yoga And Wellness Center
To make sure that employees are well taken care of and de-stressed, there’s also a wellness center. The Wellness Center is a 100,000-square-foot building complete with showers, group workout areas, a gym, and even a laundry service.
There’s even a two story yoga room. The wellness center is impressive, but it’s actually the yoga room that’s the star of the show as it’s covered with a very special type of stone.
Steve Jobs made sure that the stone for the yoga room was sourced from a special Kansas quarry. This was done so that the yoga room could look like a restaurant in Yosemite that Jobs was a fan of.
4 – Visitor Center
The only building visitors are allowed to visit without a pass is the visitor center.
The visitor center is one building, but it’s been divided into four different sections. The first is the 10,000-square-foot Apple store. This Apple store is just like any other Apple store, although it is a lot more flashy. Obviously, all the latest Apple products are available in the Apple Store, along with some exclusive Apple merchant souvenirs.
Other areas include a 2300-square-foot cafe, an observation deck, and an AR experience. The AR experience area is designed so visitors can experience the inside of the building without actually having to visit it. Talk about innovation. It is Apple, after all. Anyway, that was all for today’s article. We hope you enjoyed it.
