We have been talking for years about what will be the new Apple campus in a very short time, months watching it in different videos that have emerged 'from a drone view' where we could check the most recent advances month by month. However, so far no one had entered the interior of the building and, guided by Jony Ive, discovered some of the secrets behind the company's most impressive creation in recent years.
In an exclusive report published yesterday in Wired (in English), some previously hidden features of the so-called Apple Park and many other very interesting added data were revealed that serve to understand everything that is behind this building in the shape of a spaceship.
Everything in detail
This is the case of a question that Steven Levy - Wired reporter - asks Ive when he tells him that the cafeteria has a capacity for 4.000 people and glass doors the size of the four floors of the campus, which can be opened when time permits to enjoy a better experience in this space.
"This may be a stupid question," says Levy, "but why are four-story high doors necessary?"
To which Ive, raising an eyebrow, replies: «Well, it depends on what you mean by necesidad, Right?
From the building itself to each element that forms it seems to have a reason for itself in itself, having been designed for specific situations and always with the focus on make the day-to-day life of the 12.000 employees expected to work on campus better. The work system, for example, divided into cabins, includes tables that can be raised or lowered automatically depending on whether you want to work standing or sitting. Another example: Apple has patented its own pizza rack so that employees can take the product from the cafeteria to the workplace without it being hurt along the way.
This obsession with having absolutely everything that has to do with the company under control, both in terms of products and operations, is something that haunted Jobs from the beginning. Today, it is one of the reasons why Apple is positioned as 'something more' than a technology company such as Google or Samsung.
Jobs' dream come true
This new campus was the last great project projected by Jobs that we will see come true, surely. A good part of his last efforts, as Levy collects, were dedicated to thinking about this architectural piece that today, more than 5 years after his death, stands as a reality. From the type of marble that was to be used, even the way the wood should be cut, as well as the types of trees that had to be planted - more than 9.000 in total - on the inner and surrounding surface, it was all in his head.
There is much in this that is reminiscent of that 'romantic' Apple, far from the large numbers and huge revenues of today (without which the construction of the campus would not have been possible, probably). When asked by the titanic effort to measure every detail of the campus In exact terms, considering the design as a fundamental piece to create the harmony that the construction seems to radiate, this one answers:
We don't measure this [campus] in a number of people. We think of them in terms of the future. The goal was to create an experience and environment that reflected who we are as a company. This is our home, and everything we do in the future will start here.
The article is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a more in-depth idea of what Apple's home will be for the next few decades, as it is the first of its kind to confirm rumors heard at some point through reliable evidence and to provide a first-hand global vision.