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Critic Pans Apple's New Campus As a Retrograde Cocoon
theodp writes "LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne isn't exactly bullish on Apple's proposed new headquarters, which will hold 12,000 Apple employees in its 2.8 million sq ft. Described by Apple as 'a serene and secure environment' for its employees, Hawthorne says the new campus 'keeps itself aloof from the world around it to a degree that is unusual even in a part of California dominated by office parks. The proposed building is essentially one very long hallway connecting endlessly with itself.' Corporate architecture of this kind, adds Hawthorne, seems to promote a mindset decried by Berkeley prof Louise A. Mozingo. 'If all you see in your workday are your co-workers and all you see out your window is the green perimeter of your carefully tended property,' Mozingo writes, and you drive to and from work in the cocoon of your private car, 'the notion of a shared responsibility in the collective metropolitan realm is predictably distant."
But he's not criticizing the architecture.. he's criticizing the effect he thinks the architecture will have on the employees of a technology company.
Unless he's a psychologist and technology expert, and also has something to back up this crazy notion, it might as well be a Feng-shui guy arrogantly chiming in on the layout of a motherboard.
(And I say this as an Apple skeptic who realizes that Jobs was, at times, a Feng-shui guy who arrogantly chimed in on the layouts of motherboards with disastrous results)
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