Archinect - News

Apple opens 'The Observatory' underground space at Apple Park in Cupertino

2024-09-10T17:11:00-04:00

Apple’s new The Observatory event space at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, has been unveiled by the tech giant as part of the launch event for the new iPhone 16. The design, which is in ways reminiscent of several of James Turrell’s skylit spaces, is marketed as a contemplative experience that dialogues with the surrounding mountainside landscape.

All images provided to Archinect from Apple

The materials palette features terrazzo, natural stone, and timber (the same used in the campus' circular main building and Steve Jobs Theater next door). The building reportedly runs on 100% renewable energy.

All images provided to Archinect from Apple

Early design concepts of The Observatory were led by Foster & Partners. Apple’s Global Architecture & Design team, led by John De Maio, completed the building design and development in collaboration with Gensler.

All images provided to Archinect from Apple

The site offers an elevated view of the main Apple Park building an...

A homeless encampment is growing on Apple's future North San Jose campus

2021-08-10T17:56:00-04:00

A large homeless encampment is growing on the site Apple earmarked for its North San Jose campus, two years after Apple made waves with a $2.5 billion pledge to combat the Bay Area’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis.

Campers appear to have migrated from the nearby Mineta San Jose International Airport, which the city began clearing in late June at the urging of the FAA. Apple bought parts of the 55-acre site in North San Jose in early 2018 and currently holds no publicized plans for its development.

Nearly half of the U.S.'s homeless population lives in California alone. The state has been tragically unable to address the issue impactfully for the past two decades as rising home prices and a paucity of affordable housing are steadfastly combining to make matters worse. San Jose Spotlight has more on development issues at the site here.

Apple announces $1 billion North Carolina campus

2021-04-29T17:58:00-04:00

Apple announced plans Monday to open a new campus in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area. Apple will spend over $1 billion on the campus, and it will employ 3,000 people working on technology including software engineering and machine learning. [...] Apple’s expansion will be located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area, which gets its name from nearby North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of North Carolina.

While Apple's announcement this week boasted big numbers for its various expansion goals within the U.S. in general, and in North Carolina specifically, details on planning and design of the new campus in the Research Triangle area have not been revealed yet.

In 2019, the company broke ground on its new $1 billion, 3-million-square-foot campus in Austin, Texas.

Apple's Bay Area affordable housing initiatives begin to take shape

2020-07-14T14:32:00-04:00

As part of a $2.5 billion funding commitment made by computer and electronics giant Apple to help fund additional affordable housing initiatives, the company has allocated $400 million toward a series of first-time homebuyer and affordable housing efforts.

An announcement from Apple explains that the company has launched new affordable housing developments totaling 250 units in partnership with the Housing Trust Silicon Valley and other local nonprofit housing developers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A project undertaken with the Charities Housing Development Corporation project in San Jose, financed in partnership with Housing Trust Silicon Valley. Image courtesy of Apple.

In addition, the company will bring funding to a new mortgage and down payment assistance fund and to an affordable housing investment support program, both of which are created with the help of the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA).

Lastly, Apple is helping to fund new affordable housing construction...

Apple begins construction on $1 billion campus in Austin

2019-11-25T14:50:00-05:00

According to a recent press release, Apple has broken ground on its new $1 billion, 3-million-square-foot campus. The campus will initially house 5,000 employees, with the capacity to grow to 15,000, and is expected to open in 2022.

Apple's growth in Austin is part of the company's nation wide expansion to increase its investment in manufacturing, engineering, and other jobs across the country. Apple is on track to contribute $350 billion to the US economy between 2018 and 2023, and during that time will hire an additional 20,000 employees, the company reports.

Apple has also partnered with Austin-based Bartlett Tree Experts in an effort to preserve the diversity of native trees on the 133-acre property. According to the organization, over 60 percent of the campus will consist of landscaping, which will include a "50-acre nature and wildlife preserve that will be open to the public."

According to reports, it is assumed that Studio8 Architects will be handling the design of the new c...

Apple's Jony Ive to leave Apple and form independent design company

2019-06-27T17:58:00-04:00

Apple® today announced that Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, will depart the company as an employee later this year to form an independent design company which will count Apple among its primary clients. While he pursues personal projects, Ive in his new company will continue to work closely and on a range of projects with Apple.

Apple's long-running chief design office, Jony Ive, has announced plans to depart the company to open up his own design practice.

Ive, the designer behind the iMac, iPhone, and iPod, among many other products, is perhaps the most influential industrial designer of his generation.

Jony Ive and Tim Cook at the September 2018 launch of iPhone Xr. Image courtesy of Apple.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said, "Jony is a singular figure in the design world and his role in Apple’s revival cannot be overstated, from 1998’s groundbreaking iMac to the iPhone and the unprecedented ambition of Apple Park, where recently he has been putting so much of his energy and care."

Cook added, "Apple will continue to benefit from Jony’s talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built. After so many years working closely together, I’m happy that our relationship continues to evolve and I look forward to working wit...

Apple's impressive approach to architectural accessibility

2018-02-26T19:58:00-05:00

In our most recent episode of Archinect Sessions, we briefly discussed the (hilarious) news of people running into glass walls and dodging deadly icicles at Apple-designed buildings. It was also mentioned, however, that Apple is one of the few mega-corps that are truly pushing excellence in design, so it's understandable that innovation also comes with its fair share of failures.

Over the weekend Twitter user @xarph shared some photos of the impressive approach to (architectural) accessibility at Apple Park Visitor's Center, the publicly accessible component of Apple's new campus.

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Employees at Apple's new headquarters keep walking into its famed glass walls

2018-02-16T15:39:00-05:00

There’s been one hiccup since it opened last year: Apple employees keep smacking into the glass.

The Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA, designed by Foster and Partners, was built with much glass—the building's exterior features the famed curved panels of safety glass while the interior is populated with work spaces, also made from glass. Well, apparently, the favored building material is starting to be a real pain as Apple employees keep bumping into the clear, spotless walls.

This is not the first time Apple's penchant for prioritizing aesthetics over functionality has posed a safety risk. This winter, their flagship store in Chicago, also designed by Foster, caused a snow-related safety hazard due to its thin, gutter-less, carbon fiber roof.

Apple's investment plan promises 20,000 jobs and a new campus

2018-01-18T19:32:00-05:00

Apple expects to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the US over the next five years and create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one. Apple already employs 84,000 people in all 50 states. The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers. The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year.

Apple recently released plans to invest $350 billion in the US economy and create 20,000 jobs over the next 5 years. The company is also planning on building a new campus at a currently unknown location. Adding to the suspense of Amazon's new headquarters, US cities will now have a chance at scoring either of these powerhouses.

Supporting American manufacturing innovation, Apple is also increasing the size of their Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion.

Apple will spend an estimated $55 billion with US suppliers and manufacturers in 2018. Image: Apple.

Renewable energy is also on the company's agenda. In keeping with all US Apple facilities, the recently announced new campus will also be powered entirely by green energy.

New images of Apple Park Visitor Center as it opens to the public

2017-11-27T14:44:00-05:00

Over a decade in the making, Apple's newly completed campus finally welcomed the general public on November 17th with the grand opening celebration of the Apple Park Visitor Center. There, customers can sip on coffee and snacks; purchase a range of Apple products and accessories, including Apple Park-exclusive T-shirts, hats, postcards, baby onesies, playing cards, and tote bags; and gawk at a 3D model of the campus that provides guests with information through an augmented reality experience.

Apple Campus. © Nigel Young/Foster+Partners

Designed by the company's de facto architectural firm in residence, Foster + Partners, the structure's main feature is a cantilevered carbon fiber roof designed to float. Sound familiar? Along with the staircases, stone walls, terrazzo floors and glass façade a bird would easily fly into, the design is very much alike their also freshly completed flagship store in Chicago, and features similar elements as the...

New photos of the 'floating' carbon fiber roof Foster + Partners designed for Apple

2017-10-03T15:27:00-04:00

While most of Apple's new Cupertino campus is still under construction, a small crown jewel, the Foster + Partners-designed Steve Jobs Theater, already attracted the world's attention when it hosted the unveiling of the latest iPhone models last month.

Now we've received new, fascinating photographs that show how both firms — architect and client — applied their trademark obsession with details to a building that was especially close to the late namesake's heart.

The building's most striking feature — the record-breaking, disc-like
roof that appears floating in mid air — is not only an engineering feat
but also a damn thing of beauty: weighing 80.7 tons and spanning 155 feet, it is the world's largest carbon fiber roof and also takes the podium for all-glass-supported structure.

Here are some more details about the Steve Jobs Theater project we've received from F+P:

Carbon fiber roof:

The Theater lobby roof is the largest self-supporting fully carbon fiber roof in the world.
The ro...

Christopher Hawthorne: Apple and Amazon's architectural visions "owe nothing to the American city"

2017-09-14T17:58:00-04:00

It has also been remarkable to watch Amazon pursue a dramatically different strategy. Its plans for a second headquarters suggest that in terms of architecture and campus planning it wants to be everything Apple is not. It wants to lean into the city — and thorny questions about gentrification and housing prices, to the extent that they will be a natural byproduct of this process — rather than away from it.

"Though he took a very different path to get there," Hawthorne writes in his LAT opinion piece analyzing Apple & Amazon's lofty headquarters ambitions with a focus on urban integration (or the complete lack thereof), "Bezos ultimately reached the same conclusion Jobs did: that the wealthiest and most powerful tech companies owe nothing to the American city."

Recode captures Apple's new campus while covering yesterday's big iPhone X event

2017-09-13T18:59:00-04:00

Apple’s iPhone X event yesterday wasn’t just about its latest pocket computer. It was also its first opportunity to show off its ambitious new Apple Park “spaceship” campus to the hundreds of journalists, industry executives and “friends of Apple” in attendance.

Photo by Recode's Dan Frommer

Check out the article on Recode for the full photo gallery.

Apple Campus will open its doors to the public next week for iPhone 8 launch

2017-09-05T15:41:00-04:00

While the new Apple Campus still remains incomplete, Apple is moving forward with hosting the launch of their new iPhone 8 on site. The company sent out a media invite last Thursday with the tagline, "Let's meet at our place," confirming the location of the event. It will be the first time Apple has allowed large numbers of outsiders to visit the campus.

Main campus, still incomplete. YouTube/Duncan Sinfield

The reveal coincides with the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone, launched in 2007. Rumored features include a 3D camera that can unlock the device using facial recognition, no more home button, wireless charging, OLED display technology with greater power efficiency, improved dual-lens camera, and an almost $1,000 price tag.

Steve Jobs Theater. YouTube/Duncan Sinfield

The keynote speeches will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater, an 1,000 seat below ground auditorium that sits on top of the hill overlooking the main building. Visitors enter through a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder ...

Allison Arieff describes Silicon Valley's outdated and dysfunctional planning

2017-07-10T14:08:00-04:00

The built environment of the Valley does not reflect the innovation that’s driving the region’s stratospheric growth; it looks instead like the 1950s. Looking at aerial views of midcentury campuses like the Eero Saarinen-designed Bell Labs next to contemporary ones like Apple, it’s nearly impossible to tell the midcentury structures from the 21st-century ones.

While Silicon Valley is a place of much interest to many, its architectural image and overall planning is hard to grasp or call successful.

Allison Arieff of NY Times argues that the isolated corporate headquarters of tech giants have no consideration for the larger context of their surroundings, and heavily contribute to the Bay area's ever-worsening traffic which in combination with the outdated zoning laws, makes the whole region an extremely hard place to live in.

"In 2011, when asked by a City Council member what benefit the new Apple headquarters would have for Cupertino, Steve Jobs responded that it’d get to keep the company there. And that’s about the extent of what it got. A project like the new Norman Foster-designed Apple Park shows a blatant disregard not only for the citizens of Cupertino but also for the functionality of the region."

Apple Headquarters in Cupertino

"Because of the Bay Area’s chronic underinvestment in housing and transit, home prices escalate and cong...

Wired gets up close and personal with Apple's new Foster-designed campus

2017-05-19T18:01:00-04:00

As with any Apple product, its shape would be determined by its function. This would be a workplace where people were open to each other and open to nature, and the key to that would be modular sections, known as pods, for work or collaboration.

Since 2009, Foster and Partners have been working on a new headquarters for the tech giant Apple, originally in close collaboration with Steve Jobs, its founder, who saw it as one of his last crucial contribution to his legacy. Even though dramatic photographs of the ring-shaped structure have been flooding the Internet for some time now, there hasn’t really been any deep dives into the mega-project—until now.

Writing for Wired, Steven Levy weaves together long-awaited details about its appearance with issues of architectural representation and the brand identity of Apple, which the “spaceship” is intended to embody.

“Inside the 755-foot tunnel, the white tiles along the wall gleam like a recently installed high-end bathroom; it's what the Lincoln Tunnel must have looked like the day it opened, before the first smudge of soot sullied its walls. And as we emerge into the light, the Ring comes into view. As the Jeep orbits it, the sun glistens off the building's curved glass surface. Th...

Watch this 6-month time lapse drone video of the Apple Campus 2

2016-12-16T18:47:00-05:00

With all the drone construction videos of the new Apple Campus 2 (AC2) circulating on the interwebs, it's easy to lose track of what the progress has been on this Foster-designed Goliath of a project just in recent months.

Luckily this latest 4K video by Matthew Roberts on YouTube provides a handy 6-month time lapse of key campus sites, like 'the Spaceship,' auditorium/theater, primary access tunnel, research & development facility, the atrium, main parking garages, fitness center, maintenance facility, and the infamous 'mountain of dirt.'

Watch the video further below.

All images via Matthew Roberts' drone video on YouTube.

More recent AC2 news on Archinect:

New photos of the interior and exterior of Apple's Norman Foster-designed campus

2016-12-14T12:34:00-05:00

French website Mac Generation has obtained photos of newly completed portions of the Apple Campus 2 as designed by Foster + Partners. The exterior, which in renderings possessed a certain monolithic frisbee quality, is far more vivid in real life. Here are photos of both the interior and exterior, including a shot of one of the roof's 59 skylights:

Apple is expected to start moving its operations into the building in 2017.

For more on the Apple Campus:

Apple plan to open a huge campus in London’s Battersea Power Station

2016-09-28T12:31:00-04:00

Apple will open a mega-campus inside London’s Battersea Power Station in a major boon for the developers behind the Grade II-listed building’s regeneration. The tech giant will take over 500,000 sq ft of the power station’s Boiler House, spanning six floors. Around 1,4000 staff are expected to move into the Apple campus in 2021.

Take a look back at Archinect's coverage of the Battersea Power Station development:

Is Apple's campus design about making the corporation your entire life?

2016-04-14T13:04:00-04:00

When Apple finishes its new $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, California, the technorati will ooh and ahh over its otherworldly architecture, and Apple will pat itself on the back for yet another example of "innovation." ...But few are aware that Apple’s monumental project is already outdated, mimicking a half-century of stagnant suburban corporate campuses that isolated themselves—by design—from the communities their products were supposed to impact.

This fascinating article delves into the soul-sucking thinking behind isolated corporate behemoth design, which essentially captures the employee for the entire day and encourages a detached, "Who cares; I've got mine!" thinking towards maintaining urban infrastructure. Consider this:

Connecticut General’s new corporate estate included snack bars, ping-pong tables, shuffleboards, bowling alleys, tennis courts, horseshoe pits, a barbershop, beauty parlor, game room, media library, meditation room, and gas station, as well as offsite services like dry-cleaning, shoe repair, flowers, and grocery delivery—more than half a century before Google and Facebook added such benefits. "All these perks had a certain element of welfare capitalism," Mozingo says, "this idea that the all-inclusive physical environment is going to foster certain kinds of behavior, which are profitable for the company."

This thinking extended into the employee's need for a car:

Even the shift to personal vehicles rathe...

Check out the latest 4K drone footage of the new Apple campus

2016-04-04T19:05:00-04:00

According to schedule, Apple employees will start moving into the new Apple campus –nicknamed AC2 – in about eight months. Tim Cook, the current CEO of the tech giant, called their last product launch "probably the last" to be held in the Cupertino town hall before the move.

For more on AC2, check out some past coverage:

Apple's new spaceship campus is taking shape

2016-03-15T15:30:00-04:00

Apple's new campus has received significant attention during its development phase [...] Apple has shared with Mashable exclusive details and photos of its new corporate offices, including the theater that will serve as the venue for future Apple product launches. While we've been hearing about the design of the campus and its facilities for nearly five years, installation of the massive, curved glass panels that surround the Main Building’s spaceship-like design is about 33% complete.

Here are a few more photos of the latest construction progress. Head over to Mashable for more images.

The Foster + Partners-designed structure previously in the Archinect news:

Apple's next, HOK-designed Silicon Valley spaceship revealed

2015-10-02T14:27:00-04:00

Apple Inc. has landed its second spaceship — this time, in Sunnyvale — in a massive deal that exemplifies a new era in Silicon Valley real estate and crystalizes Apple’s enormous growth trajectory outside of its Cupertino stronghold. [...] One caveat: It’s unclear whether the project will be built according to that design, from architecture firm HOK, or if Apple and Landbank will want to modify it in some way.

On its marketing microsite Notanotherbox.com, real estate firm Landbank Investments and architects HOK present the designs for the planned new Apple "Central & Wolfe Campus" with a series of box-hating and Walter-Isaacson-quote-spiked slides:

All images via notanotherbox.com, design by HOK.

In other Apple-Campus-related news on Archinect:

Construction update: More (unofficial) drone footage of Apple's spaceship campus

2015-09-01T23:48:00-04:00

Apple's "spaceship" campus continues to be a hotspot for drones to film the project gradually coming to life. One of those drones belongs to Silicon Valley-based photographer/videographer Duncan Sinfield, who posted a new video today showing the latest additions to the campus. As Sinfield pilots his DJI Inspire 1 over the construction site, the resulting video is intermittently overlapped by flashback footage that was shot exactly one month ago for some rough comparisons. Adding a somewhat surreal vibe, the late Steve Jobs "narrates" the footage as he describes the campus to the Cupertino City Council in a 2011 clip.

Check out the video right below.

Apple invites visitors to gaze at its 'spaceship' from new observation deck

2015-07-30T14:12:00-04:00

You’ll will still be able to gaze lovingly upon the ultra-sleek new Cupertino “Spacehip” campus — no drones required. Buried in city documents filed this spring are previously unreported plans for a new visitor’s center — complete with a store and viewing platform. Apple’s 2013 approvals for the massive project included the ability for Apple to build a visitor’s center, but a detailed project description had not been submitted until April.

Apple's spaceship campus being built to iPhone standards

2015-07-10T12:46:00-04:00

"There were many meetings when the Apple representative would pick up your [iPhone] and say: 'That's what we're building.' What that means is — if you look at the phone, there's the sheen on the phone, there's the bevel on the phone, there's how much shine they have ... every piece of that phone is engineered, and the building is the same way." [...] The project is so extensive — and Apple is so demanding — that Apple Campus 2 has effectively "raised the bar for construction standards"

For more news on Apple's under-construction second campus in Cupertino:

Apple under fire for not hiring construction workers with past felonies for their new campus

2015-04-07T15:22:00-04:00

A state senator on Monday expressed his concerns about Apple’s policy of not hiring construction workers with past felony convictions at the tech giant’s new campus... Union leaders told The Chronicle that several workers suddenly lost their jobs building Apple’s new campus in January because they had past felony convictions. [State Sen. Mark] Leno called the situation “equally surprising and disturbing...”

Apple CEO Tim Cook says new spaceship campus will be 'greenest building on the planet'

2014-09-22T18:55:00-04:00

Apple has previously advertised the environmentally conscious features of Campus 2, most notably on the recently updated environmental section of its website, which states that the building will be "powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources" and rely on natural ventilation instead of temperature control during 75 percent of the year. Apple will also be installing more than 300 electric vehicle charging stations on the campus and planting more than 7,000 trees on the grounds.

Gov. Brown gives fast-track status to Apple headquarters

2012-07-03T17:26:00-04:00

"Apple's state-of-the art campus brings at least $100 million dollars in investment to California and generates no additional greenhouse gas emissions," Brown said in a statement to this newspaper, listing two of the requirements Apple had met to qualify under the law. "On-site fuel cells and 650,000 square feet of solar panels will provide clean, renewable energy for more than 12,000 Apple employees on the new campus."