The city of Cupertino has posted Apple’s proposal for its already high-profile “spaceship” offices East of its current building. It clarifies the details and shows that the building will occupy about 2.8 million square feet with offices as well as a 300,000 square foot research and development headquarters. It would be equipped in many ways to be self-sustaining, including a central plant, a fitness center, and a 1,000-person auditorium that could be used for meetings and, possibly, special media events.
An overhead view shows that the ring-shaped, glass-dominated campus would only occupy a relatively small part of the former HP area. Most of the surface would be dominated by green space with the auditorium and other secondary facilities being located away from the main structure. Even a four-storey parking facility would occupy a small part of the larger space.
Eco-friendliness would be a mainstay. A landscape survey shows that HP has let a large part of the landscaping slip and that Apple will have to replace many of the trees. A large, dedicated mass transit terminal will sit on the East side. The Northwest corner will have a large botanical garden and an orchard, although it’s not apparent if it will be an apple orchard. Parking will recover some of Apple’s energy consumption with solar panels at the roof, Apple said.
The proposals won’t come to fruition for some time. Apple’s building will only be finished by 2015, by which point the extra room for employees could be virtually necessary given Apple’s expansion. It already has to take on smaller offices in and around the Santa Clara Valley area to accommodate its demands.
[ElectronicSA]
Looks very nice, wouldn’t mind working there 🙂 Wonder if they’re ever going to manage to build it to their timeframe, I suspect it’d take longer than they would think.