Apple Park: Apple to open new spaceship campus in April

CUPERTINO, USA: Apple announced on Wednesday that Apple Park, the company’s new 175-acre campus, will be ready for for occupation for employees in April.

The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.

Apple Park was envisioned by Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration. The campus’ ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass, and will transform miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley in California.

The company also announced that the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater, after the co-founder who would have turned 62 on February 24, to honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world

The Steve Jobs Theater is situated atop a hill — one of the highest points within Apple Park — overlooking meadows and the main building. Opening later this year, the entrance to the 1,000-seat auditorium is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 165 feet in diameter, supporting a metallic carbon-fiber roof.

“Steve’s vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We’ve achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy.”

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Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, said that “Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness. It was his favorite setting for thought. Apple Park captures his spirit uncannily well.”

“He would have flourished, as the people of Apple surely will, on this luminously designed campus,” she said.

Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer said, “Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments. We have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products.”

“Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate and work together,” said Ive.

Apple Park will also include a visitor’s center with an Apple Store and cafe open to the public.There will be a 100,000-square-foot fitness center for Apple employees, secure research and development facilities and the Steve Jobs Theater. The parklands offer two miles of walking and running paths for employees, an orchard, meadow and pond within the ring’s interior grounds.

Apple Park is designed in collaboration with architectural practice Foster + Partners and replaces five million-square-feet of asphalt and concrete with grassy fields and over 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees.

It is also powered by 100 percent renewable energy and with 17 megawatts of rooftop solar,  Apple Park will run one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world.

It is also the site of the world’s largest naturally ventilated building and is projected to require no heating or air conditioning for nine months of the year.