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A Peek At Apple's Planned $5B HQ
theodp writes "The Mercury News has an exclusive sneak peek of Apple's planned headquarters in Cupertino, which Steve Jobs personally sought approval for in 2011. 'We found that rectangles or squares or long buildings or buildings with more than four stories would inhibit collaboration,' Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, explaining the motivation behind the so-called Apple Ring. Nice, but if you wanted to hurt the feelings of the Design Gods at Apple, you could point out that, for all its $5 billion glory, what Apple calls 'the best office building ever' doesn't look all that different from an old-school $3.95 6250 BPI magnetic tape reel (still available on eBay, kids!)."
So what if it looks like a tape reel?
A 1/2" reel of computer tape has a much smaller hub diameter.
the Warp Core should have its own Token
Unless you are on the first floor and can walk across a courtyard a ring is really a long building looped so the ends connect.
It seems very inefficient to me. A simple cube would very likely be far better than this design.
Stupidest Apple-trolling article on /. ever. And considering the number of Apple trolling articles on /., that's saying something.
/.!
Uh, gotta be funny. In Soviet Russia, Apple trolls
The CB App. What's your 20?
Looks like a long building...which curves in itself.
Merck built their corporate HQ in the shape of a gigantic ring back in 1990, on something like 1,000 acre site.
http://newyork.citybizlist.com/sites/default/files/styles/article/public/field/image/merck.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_headquarters
Working inside a giant ring is such a pain in the butt - except for the fact that you cant get lost.
They are selling the site (due to many things) but including the fact that while many people may be "assigned" to work there, it is usually pretty empty.
The Pentagon ... is a building.
WIth a diameter of about 1/3 of a mile a collaborator will need to walk about 1/2 mile for a face to face in the other's office on the opposite side of the ring. Good exercise but perhaps a waste of time.
And where's the write ring?
Nate
How long until Samsung and Microsoft both announce their plans to build similar circular "spaceship-like" HQs?
That does not mean what you think it means.
Now that Steve Jobs is gone, Apple need another Reality Distortion Field Generator. Why not think big? ...
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Actually, it looks more like a DECtape.
n/t
They make phones. They act like they are the DoD.
If Apple hardware is mediocre, what is high end hardware?
(Note: I am a Linux fanboy and generally avoid Mac HW due to it's poor Linux support)
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
all in the subject...
This is the Vatican.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The only way to get even less window space in relation to interior volume would be to design it as a sphere. Even a borg cube would have more windows.
May I suggest a modest design improvement: dig a canal to the bay and moor Steve Job's equally iconic and ugly yacht right in the center of the frisbee ring. The point is so nobody forgets him, right?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Any of Apple's shareholders daring to ask exactly why $5 billion of their money is being spent on building an egotrip for the executives, rather than being returned into their pockets? $5 billion seems to be rather excessive, to house 12,000 people. Oh well, at least the taxpayer is suffering too, since you can guarantee that the building will be constructed and owned by their Cayman Islands subsidiary, with Apple Inc paying exorbitant rent every month.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=W12+7RJ -- BBC did something similar
I can't believe no one came up with this yet:
;-)
One ring to rule them all...
There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
I'm sorry, but that tape reel comment is one of the lamest fucking things I've ever read on Slashdot. I don't even know if this is an attempt at trolling or just some idiot user who thinks he's being clever (hurr hurr). About a week ago I was handling a set of reels almost exactly like this (you'd be surprised at what tech banks will hold onto) and I can't even see the resemblance.
So here's to you, you little dipshit theodp. Enjoy your "lamest attempt at trolling or saying something clever" award. Please don't ever post here again.
Wait... let me have a look... it's round, a bit like a disc, but with a hole in the middle... It looks a bit like a WHEEL.
Comparison: $5B Planned Apple HQ and Old-School Magnetic Tape Reel. Would look even more similar with a white write ring! :-)
Since when is a ring phallic?
Most idiotic comment of the month. Congrats for your hate filled fail.
Fuck off.
After all, California is bad for business, while Apple would fit in wonderfully with the Texas Can-do attitude.
If there's a fire and you have to evacuate the building, is it safe to run into the center?
r&d outsourced to india or to google in mountain view?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Communications_Headquarters
All all glass building with lots of computers and the terminals with the world's secrets flashing across. An interesting concept.
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
Irregardless, a perestrian monorail would be kind of cool &mdash making it a möbius strip would be better.
doesn't look all that different from an old-school $3.95 6250 BPI magnetic tape reel
Or a ring, bracelet, flying saucer, hoola hoop, donut, or a million other things that are round. What is your point?
They took the Pentagon and rounded the corners. Apple is good at the rounded corners thing.
Apple sacrifices functionality for looks. That is NOT innovation. Anybody can remove functionality from products for basic operational features, and make the result look nicer. Cases in point: No button mice and track pads. Minimal keyboards. No SSD or USB card slots on portable devices.
Whaa, the mouse has two buttons! That will be too hard for users! We must make a device that Steven Hawking can use, not guitar players!
Whaa, the RIAA/MPAA doesn't want file copying to happen. We MUST NOT ADD copying 'enabling' devices to our units!
Whaa, PC keyboards have too many damn keys! And they are too fat! We must make crappy square 'chicklet' keyboards for kids!
Who else thinks it'd be fun to sneak onto the roof ... and paint the roof like a giant Stargate?
I have to wonder about a company who has lost 30% of it's stock price in the last year building a $5B headquarters.
I mean, I'm grateful to AAPL, since it put my daughter through college, but I gotta say, I'm glad I got out at $680.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sally you mean there is something outside of Apple?
Typical Apple. They are re-inventing the Pentagon (the DOD headquarters).
Maybe they should have several headquarters---in different colors.
It's obviously Steve Job's Walled Garden!
Without some kind of conveyance system this building is going to be next to useless. Either some kind of shuttle or miniature rail system, maybe even those horizontal escalators they have in airports would do the job. But no one is going to work in a building where you have to walk several miles every day. And whats with all of the soft focus renderings? Was the software they were using so bad that they had to blur every single image to make them look less crappy?
but you still need to walk up to half a mile to get somewhere, and there is no elevator option.
I'd rather spend 2 minutes waiting for a lift to go up 10 floors than walk for 7 minutes to go see someone.
Seems quite problematic. if a company is now building a $5B edifice to the egos of the bosses - is that going to make a good investment into the future? I don't think so.
The real world is full of people waiting for Apple to make a misstep - there is plenty of office space available at reasonable rates.
Way to simplify a incredibly complex complex. :)
"A man with a history of mental illness has pleaded guilty in connection with a thwarted plot to start a civil war by detonating what he thought was a car bomb outside an Oakland bank - but was actually a phony weapon provided by an undercover agent." ref
The Chinese "invented" something similar back in 17th century. They even aptly named it as the "walled village"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/HakkaYongding.jpg/200px-HakkaYongding.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_walled_village
Who else thinks it'd be fun to sneak onto the roof ... and paint the roof like a giant Stargate?
How about Apple itself installing an array of programmable LEDs, either showing the Stargate or the 12 signs of the zodiac indicating the position of the Earth on each day of the year. If that's a bit obscure for their tastes, a little more practical, a giant clock. Personally, anything that would improve the targetability of SillyCon Valley to be nuked from space, has my vote.
Overhead Shot: $5B Planned Apple HQ and Old-School Magnetic Tape Reel. Less tape would increase the resemblance!
IOC headquarters!
Hopefully this isn't Silicon Valley's version of the Burj Khalifa. This can go two ways of course. It could be an icon for the next century, or a failure. Yeah, consider myself trolled but I'm leaning towards failure. If circular buildings were better, why aren't there more of them? It's not like it wasn't possible a long time ago. OK, a teepee is conical but there's a practical reason for that. Many other primitive structures are round but office buildings? Generally not. Of course particle accelerators are round and ginormous; but there's an obvious reason for that.
I can see this going on the market cheap if Apple goes bust. It reminds me of dome homes. Sometimes you can pick up dome homes for less than regular ones because of the maintenance and space issues. A dome is easy to build; but harder to maintain. Roofers either aren't used to it, and will charge more. Siding, drywall patching, plumbing.. all just a little bit unusual for the contractors.
This Apple building... it's not like there are no other buildings with curved surfaces; but it's not cheap. Oracle has its famous six-pack, so there's some precedent. Of course... GM's HQ had curves too. Oops. It's not that there are no architects and contractors who worked with curved office buildings... it's just that there are fewer of them and they probably charge more. Well, that's true to the Apple way, isn't it?
This building is not a circle, it's an infinigon.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Your shitty borg cube doesn't have any natural light except the few outside spaces. If you had any imagination, you would have specified a hemisphere, or even a sphere with one half of it underground. Or bury the whole sphere a la the Umbrella bunker under Raccoon City. Then it wouldn't take up ANY land area.
A sphere is the smallest possible envelope, with the least surface area, for any given volume.
But the Apple design is far superior esthetically, much more realistic to construct, and still extremely ergonomic. How many large cube or sphere buildings do you know of?
Building that in Cupertino is a good thing for the city. It's a blah suburb.
Now here's a prestige research center - IBM Alamaden Research Center. That place produced several Nobel Prizes. It's on an isolated mountaintop. You drive for a mile after entering the property before reaching the buildings. The view from the cafeteria is of mountains, with no other buildings in sight.
It's also half-empty since IBM cut back.
Really, the ring looks like a familiar old structure: the Pentagon.
Just that construction techniques now allow curved walls compared to 50yrs ago.
...a bigger(?) version of GCHQ in England....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
PS: It's flaccid cuz your dad doesn't wash his asshole
what this is, is an epiphany in building design. Squares are unnatural, and so are enclosed office spaces. Most people don't work well in isolation, which is why prisons exist - to isolate you. If this design is a: open plan (not even bullpens, thank you) and b: open to let in as much natural light as is humanly possible, then I for one would not only reconsider my career direction to work in such a place, I would willingly relocate to do so. I've tried to work under fluorescents, it made me ill. Give me a window next to my workstation or we're not having a conversation.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
next product
People don't get it. It's the end of a really long barrel. They are going to use it to shotgun Steve's ashes into space.
I'm no doctor, but if you are a man and consider a ring to be phallic, then something is wrong. Better to get this checked now than to wait. Trust me - a friend worked the STD clinic when studying and he saw the consequences if men who wait until shit is the size of a grapefruit before getting it checked out.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Silly Apple: Spending $5 billion on a building, when they could have bought a tape real for $4 to do the same thing.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The Pentagon was completed in 1943 when the Government Communications Headquarters was still crammed into Bletchley Park.
Sure, the Pentagon is not a circle, but it is a multi-ringed structure designed to optimize some of the same things that Apple has claimed to have solved with their design.
apple would rather waste money on a frivolous dream of a dead employee than, i dunno.. pay dividends? reinvest in new tech?
there's enough room at apple's existing campus to expand a bit to consolidate some of the corporate staff currently located off-site. such plans would cost a tiny fraction of this new building's cost.
This
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
About as good an idea as a watch.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Hey the earth looks like a basketball, what a foolish idea!
You can attach small plaques to the walls (with rounded corners of course) that have words on them to say where you are.
For the benefit of people like you, it's possible to either replace the words or supplement them with pictures.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Giant Onion Ring !
How many tech companies built a palace at the top and it becomes a museum or office complex or Oracle swallows it up?
Why it looks just like the new Mac Pro.
Only a bit bigger
from when they turn their attention to building an edifice to themselves.
It happens over and over.
We've been doing some estimating for the building. They are spec'ing all European products. Everything is bright white and exceedingly high end. I'm not under NDA but the people we work with are and have not been able to confirm it is the apple campus but when I back worked the materials it all led back to London Architect. It is going to be an amazing place to work. However, I have a theory. Everytime a company makes a new campus you need to divest. (eg Facebook, Gap Clothing, and many others)
After the collapse of the world economy, this building will be used for gladiator-style combat.