Matthew Roberts (not me) has been posting awesome drone flyover videos of the construction. The video is absolutely stunning and filmed in 4k. Highly recommended.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvkh5udzKds" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvkh5udzKds</a>
Naming the theater after Jobs is a really nice touch. His product introductions are among the most iconic parts of his legacy, and you could always tell just from watching that he took great pride in doing them. A fitting tribute.
My only issue is that I bet the center of the building is going to be a complete waste and totally deserted except for employees occasionally taking a shortcut between sides (if the doors are set up to do that). The building is big (I drive by it regularly), but not so big to give the central area any sense of privacy, so when you walk out into it, you're going to sense that 12,000 eyes are watching you. I've been in large central courtyards like that before (in square configurations, of course) and the feeling of being watched is always palpable. Maybe the trees they plant in there will help, but I doubt it.
Probably I would inevitably think this about any ring-shaped building, but it looks quite a bit like the GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Communications_Headquarters#/media/File:GCHQ-aerial.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Communications_Head...</a><p>I guess the Apple version is somewhat more slender and (unsurprisingly for Apple?) a bit shinier.
You can see it from a nearby hiking trail, Rancho San Antonio. It's really rather stunning.<p>Also, I really appreciate whichever jurisdiction gave the go ahead and funded the expansion of the on/off ramps on Wolfe/280 (likely Cupertino?). The traffic in the area has become really miserable over the years and I'm hopeful that things are a bit better than the current De Anza Blvd situation.
This building seems super wasteful landwise, but I guess it's in the sprawling silicon valley suburbs so no one really expects or cares about compactness or efficiency.<p>It'll likely be arduous for someone to move from one part of the building to the other, but I suppose Apple employees don't typically need to do this that much.<p>How long is the walk across the inner square by foot I wonder?
Wait there's <i>17</i> megawatts of solar on this thing? Would love to hear more about how this integrated into the facility. That is an immense PV array.
Wow, for all of Apple's perfectionism, I'm surprised the distorted reflections on the circular sunshades aren't driving someone bonkers.
According to Trulia one of the closest houses for sale by this thing is $4.1 Million.<p><a href="https://www.trulia.com/for_sale/37.316929278047,37.342590905897,-122.02655364826,-121.98535491779_xy/15_zm/" rel="nofollow">https://www.trulia.com/for_sale/37.316929278047,37.342590905...</a>
Building a fancy corporate HQ is often a signal that management has lost touch with the core business.<p>EDIT: I can easily make the case this has happened at Apple. Look at their iPad lineup, for example. How do I figure out which model to buy? IIRC, this lack of focus on the product line was one of the first things Jobs addressed when he returned to the company in 1997.<p>This is not to say that Apple isn't one of the most successful businesses ever. It argues against bigness. When you're that successful, you can't (it seems) help but make very expensive decisions rooted in hubris and grandiosity. Imagine what could have been done instead with a $1 billion new building and $4 billion in venture capital, for example.<p>The US government has the same problem. The amount of wealth captured from the overall economy gives government leaders/lobbyists too much power, and we get the f-35.
This is so beautiful and inspiring. A real legacy. Imagine a world without Apple computers pushing the envelope. We'd still be using wired mice and ugly black boxes.<p>If only Steve Jobs had taken the traditional medicine route he would have been with us for another 50 years.
Fun for the people who will work there! The Google campus nearby has an ad-hoc feeling, assembled as existing buildings were purchased (at least when I was a contractor there). It is expensive, but designing a large beautiful campus must be great for employee moral.
Great Newspeak for their Office Building. In this "Office Building" approximately 70% of all the employees' time will be 1) writing emails and 2) having meetings in conference rooms. But instead it is "Apple Park" where work is leisure and being inside working is actually frolicking.
Parts of this should be open to the public. The public has had to endure all of the construction and has lost a large amount of land-space that could have been used for the community. Instead, we have a completely private & inaccessible area. Sure, there are cafes, fitness centers, and working areas within the building but none of it is public and all at the expense of the people who live there.