auto entertainment system: Jobs To Cupertino: We Want A Spaceship-Shaped, 12K Capacity Building As Our New Apple Campus

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Jobs To Cupertino: We Want A Spaceship-Shaped, 12K Capacity Building As Our New Apple Campus

After having a banner WWDC start yesterday, Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs humbly presented his idea for a new Apple campus at the Cupertino City Council today.?Jobs wants to build one building that will hold 12,000 Apple employees on a former Hewlett-Packard property in the area between Tantau North Wolfe, Homestead and the 280.?It?s a little like a spaceship landed,? Jobs says. No kidding.

Jobs begins the presentation referring to the fact that Apple is growing ?like a weed,? and that its current campus at D?Anza and the 280 isn?t enough ? fitting only about 2,800 people. Apple currently rents buildings to house its other 6,700 employees in the area. The new building will augment the current campus.

Apple purchased about 100 acres from Hewlett Packard in 2010, added them to the 50 it owns adjacent. Jobs says he has corralled ?some great architects ? some of the best in the world??to come up with a design that puts 12,000 people in one four story high building. The area is now apricot orchards.

With the futuristic design Apple apparently is using its experience building retail stores, and it will be creating a large-scale piece of curved glass if the proposal goes through. ?There?s not a single straight piece of glass in this building,? Jobs says.?The parking will be underground.

Jobs also wants the building to function as its own power source, with an ?energy center? as its primary source of power (?with natural gas and other ways that are cleaner and cheaper?), using the grid as a backup.

The campus will also include amenities like its own auditorium similar to Apple?s current Town Hall (?We?ve got an auditorium, cause we put on presentations, much like we did yesterday but we have to go to San Francisco to do them.?) and a?cafeteria that will feed 3,000 people at one sitting.

?We do have a shot at building the best office building in the world,? Jobs told the Council members, ?Architecture students will come here to see this.? Ideally Apple wants to move into the campus in 2015.

The individual members of the Cupertino City Council seem like they were in awe the entire time the infamously charismatic Apple CEO spoke (which isn?t surprising), asking Jobs for free wifi and iPads for constituents as well as for an Apple store that?s actually in Cupertino. To which he responded, ?I think we bring a lot more than free Wifi.?

Key facts about the new Apple campus:

Design will include a courtyard in the middle, curved glass all the way around.
Jobs is planning on transforming an area that?s 20% landscaping to 80% landscaping by putting most of the building?s parking underground.
There are 3,700 trees in the area at the moment, Jobs has hired an arborist from Stanford to take the area to 6,000 trees.
4 story high building and 4 story parking structure.
The campus will incude an energy center, and using natural gas will be the primary source of power, using the grid a background.
It will aslo include an auditorium, fitness center and some R & D buildings.
Jobs plans a 40% increase in employees going from 9,500 today to 13, 000 in 2015.
He wants to increase the space 20% from 2.6 million to 3.1 million square feet.
Landscaping will increase 60%?from 3,700 to 6,000.
Surface parking will decrease 90% from?9,800 to 1,200 .
The building footprint will decrease 30% from 1.4 million to 1 million.
Cafeterias to fit 3,000 people at a sitting.
The whole building designed with the utmost concern for safety.
Apple is the largest taxpayer in Cupertino.
Apple currently has 20 buses running on bio-diesel fuel for its employees.
The plan for the new design will submitted asap, and Jobs hopes to break ground next year and move in 2015.