Iconic British architect Sir Norman Foster has revealed designs for Apple’s new “spaceship” campus in Cupertino.
In an interview with magazine Architectural Record, the Foster + Partners boss said that the building will be designed in a way that Apple workers will never have to see a car.
Foster said cars will be “banished and buried” in an underground car park and tarmac will be replaced with greenery. Glass walls as tall as the height of the building will slide open, and cafes and restaurants will help break up the vast scale. Also, more than 1,000 bikes will be kept on site to help staff make their way around the circular campus.
Foster studied enclosed urban spaces, like squares in London, to come up with a design for Apple’s HQ.
“These studies finally morphed into a circular building that would enclose the private space in the middle – essentially a park that would replicate the original California landscape, and parts of it would also recapture the orchards of the past,” he said to Architectural Record. “The car would visually be banished, and tarmac would be replaced by greenery, and car parks by jogging and bicycle trails.”
“You won’t look out of your window and see row after row of parked cars,” Foster said. “And of course you have the benefit of jogging and cycling trails – more than a thousand bikes will be kept on the site – and also pathways and landscaping connections.”
Foster went on to say that the designs were inspired by Steve Jobs’ love for large open spaces at Stanford University.
“The reference point for Steve [Jobs] was always the large space on the Stanford campus – the Main Quad – which Steve knew intimately,” he said. “Also, he would reminisce about the time when he was young, and California was still the fruit bowl of the United States. It was still orchards.”
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