“Apple Inc.’s stunning new Campus 2 in Cupertino, California, will be one of Steve Jobs’ lasting legacies when completed in 2015,” Edward Tenner reports for Bloomberg News.
“For better or worse, he was thinking differently to the end, striving for geographic self-sufficiency even as many other high-technology enterprises across the country were starting to return to city life,” Tenner reports. “Will this approach, and the complex that embodies it, renew Apple’s culture of excellence or retard it?”
“Costing an estimated $5 billion and covering 175 acres, with 2.8 million square feet of office space for 13,000 employees, the doughnut-shaped building designed by Norman Foster may be the ultimate in green architecture,” Tenner reports. “But the 700 newly planted trees that will surround it are dual-use foliage.”
“According to a planning document, Apple’s goal was to achieve ‘the security and privacy required for the invention of new products by eliminating any public access through the site, and protecting the perimeters against trespassers,'” Tenner reports. “Apple is almost alone in its retreat from the street grid. In fact, the trend has been to shed suburban centers and migrate to academic neighborhoods in cities.”
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