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Apple Park, also known as Apple Campus 2, is the corporate headquarters of
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
, located in
Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose, California, San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ...
, United States. It was opened to employees in April 2017, while construction was still underway. It replaced
Apple Campus The Apple Campus is the former corporate headquarters of Apple Inc. from 1993 until 2017. In April 2017, it was largely replaced by Apple Park (aka Apple Campus 2), but is still an Apple office and lab space. The campus is located at 1 Infinite ...
as the company's corporate headquarters. The main building's scale and circular
groundscraper A groundscraper is a large building that has relatively few stories but which greatly extends horizontally. Definition '' Encarta'' defines ''groundscraper'' as "a large low or medium-rise building, typically containing offices, that spreads hor ...
design, by
Norman Foster Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank (born 1 June 1935) is an English architect. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Lord Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. Hi ...
, has earned the structure the media nickname "the spaceship". Located on a suburban site totaling , it houses more than 12,000 employees in one central four-story circular building of approximately . Apple co-founder
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
wanted the campus to look less like a
business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...
and more like a nature refuge; 80 percent of the site consists of green space planted with drought-resistant trees and plants indigenous to the Cupertino area, and the center courtyard of the main building features an artificial pond.


History

In April 2006, Apple's then CEO
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
announced to the city council of Cupertino that Apple had acquired nine contiguous properties to build a second campus, the Apple Campus 2. The idea for a new headquarters was conceived by Jobs and Apple's then chief designer
Jony Ive Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British-American designer. He is best known for his work at Apple Inc., where he was senior vice president of industrial design and chief design officer. Ive is the founder of LoveFrom, a crea ...
. Ive was Apple's immediate choice to design the project, going on to work very closely together with
Norman Foster Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank (born 1 June 1935) is an English architect. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Lord Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. Hi ...
across five years, designing every detail, from the glass panels to the elevator buttons. Purchases of the needed properties were made through the company
Hines Interests Hines Interests Limited Partnership is an American privately held company that invests in and develops real estate. As of 2023, the company has developed, redeveloped or acquired more than 1,600 properties, comprising over 540 million square fe ...
, which in at least some cases did not disclose the fact that Apple was the ultimate buyer; Philip Mahoney, a partner with a local commercial real estate brokerage, noted that this is common practice in attempts to arrange the purchase of contiguous land made up of multiple parcels with separate owners, in order to keep costs from skyrocketing and not reveal the company's plans to competitors. Among the sellers of the properties were SummerHill Homes (a plot of ) and
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
(three buildings of their campus in Cupertino). Until April 2008, Apple had not sought the necessary permits to begin construction, so it was estimated that the project would not be ready in 2010 as originally proposed; however, the buildings on the site were held by Apple for its operations. In November 2010 the ''
San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' revealed that Apple had bought an additional no longer used by HP, just north across Pruneridge Ave. This space had been the HP campus in Cupertino before it was relocated to
Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...
. On June 7, 2011, Jobs presented to the Cupertino City Council details of the architectural design of the new buildings and their surroundings. He did not live to see construction begin, dying a few months later on October 5. On October 15, 2013, Cupertino City Council unanimously approved Apple's plans for the new campus after a six-hour debate. Shortly thereafter, demolition work began to prepare the site for construction. Originally expected to break ground in 2013 and open in 2015, the project was delayed and started in 2014. On February 22, 2017, Apple announced that the official name of the campus would be "Apple Park", and the auditorium would be named the "Steve Jobs Theater". The campus opened for workers in April 2017, despite continued construction work. This was followed by the first event in the Steve Jobs Theater, which took place on September 12, 2017. The Apple Park Visitor Center opened five days later, on September 17, 2017. As a consequence of the construction of Apple Park in the area, surrounding streets have seen increased tourism as well as rising real estate values, due to Apple employees' desire to live near their workplace.


Location

Apple Park is located east of the original
Apple Campus The Apple Campus is the former corporate headquarters of Apple Inc. from 1993 until 2017. In April 2017, it was largely replaced by Apple Park (aka Apple Campus 2), but is still an Apple office and lab space. The campus is located at 1 Infinite ...
. Apple has had a presence in Cupertino since 1977, which is why the company decided to build in the area rather than move to a cheaper, distant location. The campus is also next to a contaminated site under
Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
legislation with a groundwater plume found to contain
trichloroethylene Trichloroethylene (TCE) is an organochloride with the formula C2HCl3, commonly used as an industrial metal-degreasing solvent. It is a clear, colourless, non-flammable, volatile liquid with a chloroform-like pleasant mild smell and sweet taste.
from improper disposal of
industrial waste Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and ...
by
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...
manufacturers.


Design and construction

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
, in June 2011, in his final public appearance before his death, was quoted as saying: The ring-shaped building, advertised as "a perfect circle", was not originally planned as such. The inner rim and outer rim on each floor are left open as walkways. There are eight buildings, separated by nine mini-
atria Atria may refer to: Science *Atrium (heart) (plural: atria), an anatomical structure of the heart *Atria (genus), a flatworm genus in the family Dendrocoelidae * Atria (star) or Alpha Trianguli Australis, a star in the constellation Triangulum Aus ...
. The campus is in
circumference In geometry, the circumference () is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. More generally, the perimeter is the curve length arou ...
, with a diameter of . The one circular building houses most employees. It is four stories above the ground and three stories underground. Apple created life-size mock-ups of all parts of the building to analyze any design issues. The campus design places the roads underground. Cars are parked underground and in two multistorey parking garages. The campus uses only glass for its walls and views of the inner courtyard as well as of the landscape facing the exterior of the building. Around of space is for meetings and breakout spaces in the building. The inner part of the circular building contains a park featuring a pond, with fruit trees and winding pathways inspired by California fruit orchards. Apple brought to the construction project the same "fanatical attention to detail" which the company is famous for lavishing upon its products. Apple insisted on extraordinarily tight
tolerances Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in: # a physical dimension; # a measured value or physical property of a material, manufactured object, system, or service; # other measured values (such as temperature, hu ...
, even for parts of the structure normally hidden from view. Construction workers were often required to wear gloves to minimize accidental damage to surfaces. All interior wood used for furniture was harvested from a certain species of
maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...
, with Apple working with construction companies from 19 countries for designs and materials. A breathing, hollow concrete slab acts as floor, ceiling, and
HVAC Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC ) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. ...
system. A total of 4,300 such slabs were used. Some of the slabs weigh .


Construction

During construction, the building's structure was started by
Skanska Skanska AB () is a multinational construction and development company based in Sweden. It was established in 1887 as a concrete product manufacturer. History Aktiebolaget Skånska Cementgjuteriet (Scanian Cement Casting Ltd) was established i ...
and DPR, but they were removed from the job for undisclosed reasons. Apple hired
Rudolph and Sletten Rudolph and Sletten is a general contracting firm on the West Coast of the United States providing general contracting and construction management services. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with regional offices in Los Ang ...
and Holder Construction as its new
general contractor A contractor (North American English) or builder (British English), is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the c ...
s, and they completed the structure, envelope, and interior buildout. Truebeck Construction (then known as BNBTBuilders) worked on the exterior landscaping, Steve Jobs Theater, and the health and fitness center; a joint venture of BNBTBuilders and
Webcor Builders Webcor is a commercial construction contractor with headquarters in San Francisco, California. The firm also has regional offices in Alameda, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose, and is among the largest builders in California with clients inclu ...
worked on an adjacent group of
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...
buildings; McCarthy Building Companies built the parking garage; and
Granite Construction Granite Construction Inc. is a civil construction company and aggregate producer, a member of the S&P 600 Index based and founded in Watsonville, California, and is the parent corporation of Granite Construction Company. The company is both a h ...
performed road widening and utility work. The project created approximately 13,000 full-time construction jobs. The facade panes are produced by Bavarian companies Josef Gartner and Sedak. The latter company is a subsidiary of Seele GmbH; Apple had previously worked with Seele, an expert on glass facades, for some of its more prominent Apple Stores such as the one on
5th Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
in New York City. David Nicholl and Partners delivered the M&E works.


Costs

The land cost was estimated at $160 million. In 2011, the budget for Apple Campus 2 was less than $3 billion. However, in 2013 the total cost was estimated to be closer to $5 billion.


Energy source

The campus was announced as one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world, and the main building, Steve Jobs Theater, and fitness center are all
LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...
Platinum certified. In an April 2018 press release, Apple announced that it had switched to being powered entirely by
renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...
. The solar panels installed on the roof of the campus can generate 17 megawatts of power, sufficient to power 75% during peak daytime, and making it one of the largest solar roofs of the world. The other 4 megawatts are generated onsite using
Bloom Energy Server The Bloom Energy Server or Bloom Box is a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power generator made by Bloom Energy, of Sunnyvale, California, that takes a variety of input fuels, including liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons produced from biological sources ...
fuel cells, which are powered by
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from Biomass (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...
or
natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
. The air flows freely between the inside and outside of the building, providing natural ventilation and obviating the need for
HVAC Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC ) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. ...
systems during nine months of the year.


Facilities


Cafés

The campus has seven cafés, with the largest being a three-level café for 3,000 sitting people. It has light-colored stone lining and glass railing with no metal support and is surrounded by extensive landscaping. The
mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...
space of can accommodate 600 people and 1,750 seats on terraces outside, with a capacity to serve 15,000 lunches a day, housed by specially designed 500 tables made of solid
Spessart Spessart () is a ''Mittelgebirge'', a range of low wooded mountains, in the States of Bavaria and Hesse in Germany. It is bordered by the Vogelsberg, Rhön and Odenwald. The highest elevation is the Geiersberg (Spessart), Geiersberg at 586 metre ...
white oak, measuring long and wide. The sports tables and benches resemble those in
Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of Retail, retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell, service and repair various Apple products, including Macintosh, Mac desktop and MacBook laptop personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad ta ...
s.


Auditorium

Officially known as the
Steve Jobs Theater The Steve Jobs Theater is an underground auditorium complex located at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. It is named after the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, and is situated atop a hill at one of the highest points in Apple Pa ...
, after the
co-founder An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any oth ...
and former
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...
of Apple, the facility is located atop a hill on the campus. It is an underground, 1,000-seat
auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...
intended for Apple product launches and press meets. It has a large above-ground cylinder-shaped lobby with stairs down to the auditorium. The theater has 350 parking spaces on North Tantau Avenue and a pedestrian path leading to the main campus located northwest of the theater. The theater plays host to many types of events, from
Apple Events Apple events are the message-based interprocess communication mechanism in Mac OS, first making an appearance in System 7 and supported by every version of the classic Mac OS since then and by macOS. Apple events describe "high-level" events such ...
such as product announcements,
WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...
(Apple's Developers Conference), and shareholder's meetings, to special
Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...
events, such as performances by
Billie Eilish Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell ( ; born December 18, 2001) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She first gained public attention in 2015 with her debut single "Ocean Eyes (song), Ocean Eyes", written and produced by her broth ...
and
Ludovico Einaudi Ludovico Maria Enrico Einaudi OMRI (; born 23 November 1955) is an Italian pianist and composer. Trained at the Milan Conservatory, Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, Einaudi began his career as a classical composer, later incorporating other styles ...
. The theater's lobby has cylindrical-shaped glass walls and no support columns, which give an unhindered 360-degree view of the surrounding campus. The
carbon-fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
roof, made of 44 identical panels, was supplied by the Dubai-based company, Premier Composite Technologies. Each panel is long and wide and locks in the middle with the other panels. It is the largest carbon-fiber roof and the largest glass-supported structure in the world. The theater also includes a high glass elevator that rotates 171 degrees from the bottom floor to the upper lobby level. The elevator is made from chemically tempered glass, and is considered to be the tallest free-standing glass elevator in the world. The theater's first press event was held on September 12, 2017, where the
iPhone 8 The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are smartphones developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the eleventh generation of the iPhone. The iPhone 8 was released on September 22, 2017, succeeding the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, respectively. T ...
, iPhone 8 Plus,
iPhone X The iPhone X (Roman numerals, Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten") is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the List of iPhone models, 11th generation of the iPhone. Available for pre-order from September 26, 2 ...
,
Apple Watch Series 3 The Apple Watch is a brand of smartwatch products developed and marketed by Apple. It incorporates fitness tracking, health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates with watchOS and other Apple products and servi ...
and
Apple TV 4K Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...
were announced.


Wellness center

A fitness center is located in the northwest of the campus. Apart from gym equipment, the fitness center features other amenities like changing rooms, showers, laundry services, and rooms for group sessions.


Research and development facility

The
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...
facilities feature two large buildings on the southern edge of the campus and are occupied by more than 2,000 people. The top floor of each building houses the department comprising industrial design and human interface teams formerly headed by design chief
Jony Ive Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British-American designer. He is best known for his work at Apple Inc., where he was senior vice president of industrial design and chief design officer. Ive is the founder of LoveFrom, a crea ...
.


Transportation


Bus

Employees traveling by bus will board and depart from the bus station, which leads to the main campus via two white staircases. The area is also served by the
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a Special district (United States), special district responsible for public transit services, Congestion management agen ...
(VTA), which runs a local bus service from Cupertino to nearby cities. Prominent transit consultant
Jarrett Walker Jarrett Walker (born 1962) is an American transit consultant and author. He has a consulting firm based in Portland, Oregon, that has worked on projects across North America, Europe, and Oceania. Walker is the author of the blog ''Human Transit' ...
, who worked with the VTA on providing service to the campus, criticized the campus' design due to its poor access to public transit.


Parking

Parking is located both underground and in two large parking structures accommodating approximately 14,200 employees. Cupertino regulations required a minimum of 11,000 parking spaces, 700 of which have electric vehicle charging stations. There are 2,000 parking spaces in the subterranean parking garage. The parking is managed by sensors and apps, which manage the traffic and parking spaces.


Cycling

There are 1,000 bikes on the campus for employees to get around, with miles of cycling and jogging trails all over the campus. There are an additional 2,000 bicycle parking spaces in the subterranean car parking garage.


Apple Park Visitor Center

Apple Park Visitor Center is a two-story structure with four main areas: an
Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of Retail, retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell, service and repair various Apple products, including Macintosh, Mac desktop and MacBook laptop personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad ta ...
featuring Apple-branded merchandise (T-shirts, hats, tote bags, postcards) not sold at regular Apple stores, a café, an exhibition space which currently showcases a 3D model of Apple Park with augmented reality, and a roof terrace overlooking the campus. It opened to the public on November 17, 2017. The estimated cost of the center is $80 million. The property at 10600 North Tantau Avenue (northeast corner of Tantau and Pruneridge avenues) is across the road from the campus proper and abuts a Santa Clara residential neighborhood. The underground parking garage, with close to 700 spaces, has an estimated cost of $26 million. The Visitor Center is the only part of Apple Park which
tourists Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...
are permitted to visit.


Apple Park Developer Center

Apple Park Developer Center is a two-story structure across the street from the Apple Park Visitor Center at 10500 North Tantau Avenue (southeast corner of Tantau and Pruneridge avenues). Construction began in May 2021. Apple Park Developer Center was inaugurated on June 6, 2022, during
WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...
.


Grounds


Landscaping

80% of the campus consists of green space. The spacious courtyard in the middle of the primary building was planted with apricot, olive, and apple orchards, as well as a
herb garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...
near the cafe. Other plants selected for the campus landscape are drought tolerant. Recycled water is used to water the campus. In 2011, Apple hired an
arborist An arborist, or (less commonly) arboriculturist, is a professional in the practice of arboriculture, which is the Plant cultivation, cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants in dend ...
, Dave Muffly, to cultivate California's natural environment around Apple Park. Apple's headhunters tracked down Muffly in 2010 after Jobs recognized the quality of the oak trees near the Stanford Dish and asked staff to find the arborist who was caring for them. There are 9,000 trees on the Apple Park campus, of 309 varieties of indigenous species. The planted trees are
Oak savanna An oak savanna is a type of savanna (or lightly forested grassland), where oaks (''Quercus ''spp.) are the dominant trees. It is also generally characterized by an understory that is lush with grass and herb-related plants. The terms "oakery" or ...
,
Oak wood An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
, and fruit trees including apple,
apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus ''Prunus''. Usually an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are also ...
, plum, cherry, and
persimmon The persimmon () is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus '' Diospyros''. The most widely cultivated of these is the Chinese and Japanese kaki persimmon, ''Diospyros kaki''. In 2022, China produced 77% of the world's p ...
. An additional are used for a native California grassland. Among the apple varieties represented are
Golden Delicious Golden Delicious is a cultivar of apple. It is one of the 15 most popular apple cultivars in the United States. It is not closely related to Red Delicious. History Golden Delicious arose from a chance seedling, possibly a hybrid of Grimes ...
,
Granny Smith The Granny Smith is an List of apple cultivars, apple cultivar that originated in Australia in 1868. It is named after Maria Ann Smith, who Fruit tree propagation, propagated the cultivar from a chance seedling. The tree is thought to be a Hybri ...
,
Gravenstein Gravenstein (Danish: ''Gråsten'', meaning "graystone", after Gråsten Palace) is a triploid apple cultivar that originated in the 17th century or earlier. The fruit has a tart flavor, and it is heavily used as a cooking apple, especially f ...
, and Pink Lady, but the McIntosh is notably absent, due to its incompatibility with the area's climate. After he began work in earnest, Muffly realized that fewer than a hundred of the 4,000 existing trees were usable. This meant he had to procure from scratch almost all of the 9,000 planned trees. His team went so far as to search abandoned Christmas tree farms, and Apple bought one at Yermo in the
Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...
.


Historic barn

The land that Apple purchased for the campus came with an old
barn A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.Allen G ...
that was built in 1916 by John Leonard using redwood planks. Leonard married into the Glendenning Family, who immigrated to the United States from Scotland and settled in the area in the 1850s. After Apple purchased the property, there were discussions between Apple, the Cupertino Historical Society, and the city of Cupertino as to the fate of the barn. The city's interest in the barn stemmed from its 2004 declaration as a historical site. Eventually, Apple agreed to keep the barn on the property and is using it to "store maintenance tools and other landscaping materials". The barn was disassembled during the campus construction and then reassembled in a different location from where it was originally located.


Inner courtyard

The inner courtyard is , and lush with fruit trees alongside an artificial pond and a café. In the center, there is a rectangular field with several arches that resemble a
rainbow A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...
when seen from a distance.


Reception

The design of the Apple Park campus has been called the "ultimate example" of suburban office parks, which have been in decline as companies seek to relocate to urban areas with better transit, bicycle, and pedestrian access. Kaid Benfield of the
Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicag ...
, a non-profit environmental advocacy group, criticized the proposed campus for contributing to existing
suburban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...
, with car-dependent features and waste of expensive real estate that could have been used for
affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median, as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on ...
. The headquarters also gained unfavorable attention when it emerged in 2018 that two workers had been injured and required hospital treatment after walking into the building's clear glass walls and doors. Apple received some criticism for the perceived extravagance of its new headquarters, as well as its perfectionist approach to its design and construction. The use of special wood as a construction material was reported to be the subject of a 30-page guideline. The design of door handles was reported to be the subject of a one-and-a-half-year debate, involving several revisions before the Apple management gave its approval. Apple's desire for custom signage put the company at odds with the Santa Clara County Fire Department, requiring several rounds of negotiations due to fears it could compromise safety in case of emergencies. In her book '' Brotopia'', writer
Emily Chang Emily Chang may refer to: * Emily Chang (actress) Emily Chang (born August 11, 1980) is an American actress. She is known for playing the "Ba-zing!" girl in a 2012 commercial for Ruffles and the character Ivy in the television series ''The Vamp ...
criticized Apple Park for having no daycare facilities for employees' children, despite it ostensibly serving the needs of every individual.


References


External links


"One More Thing: Inside Apple's Insanely Great (Or Just Insane) New Mothership" article
''Wired'' {{Portal bar, San Francisco Bay Area, Architecture
Park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
2017 establishments in California Buildings and structures in Santa Clara County, California Corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley Cupertino, California Foster and Partners buildings High-tech architecture Information technology company headquarters in the United States Office buildings completed in 2017 Office buildings in California Round buildings