“For reasons that would take too long to explain I find myself in Durban, South Africa, this week at a gathering of 6,000 architects from around the world,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “I haven’t yet found one who likes Steve Jobs’ design for the new Apple headquarters — the Pentagon-sized edifice, now under construction in Cupertino, Calif., that Jobs described as looking a little like a spaceship had landed. ‘Does it have to be a spaceship?’ asked an official at the American Institute of Architects.”
“Jobs is not here to answer for his design, but Ed Catmull is,” P.E.D. reports. “Jobs’ main contribution was the design of Pixar’s headquarters — a job he took as seriously as the look and feel of any Apple product. As Catmull describes the process, it didn’t come easily.”
P.E.D. reports, “Everything you need to know about Apple’s new headquarters can be learned from the way Jobs designed the Pixar building.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
You know what else these architects don’t get? Pritzker Prizes. Your average “official at the American Institute of Architects” is more interested in pushing paper than design envelopes.
Yep..the minute I saw “official” at the AIA…I stopped reading.
Just jealous that Foster gets all the work and plaudits these day while they stay in obscurity other than eternally taking advantage of pretentious junkets of mutual admiration around the World bemoaning their irrelevance to the architectural big picture.
Steve’s genius will never be fully understood by the non-genius. But his successes speak for themselves.
It ought to be great for secrecy – it’s an exact copy of the GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters) building –
Well, GCHQ and Apple are both circular in plan, but there the similarity stops –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doughnut
The Diamond Light Source is another UK circular structure –
http://www.diamond.ac.uk/PressOffice/MediaResources.html
Looks great, except for cars that should be replaced with trees.
A few trees and solar panels on the roof and you have something that’s impressive.
Apple replaces the 90% asphalt parking & 10% trees on former HP campus with 90% tress & 10% buildings. Also, some parking is under the spaceship too.
Fruit Loop.
They could add rainbow color coded floors or sections of the campus.
One of my favorite cereals as a kid, the association was an easy one … 🙂
That Ferris wheel thingie in London is also a circle.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is circular.
So is a doughnut.. D’Oh!
By which you mean The London Eye, which is, indeed, circular.
But could never be mistaken for a building.
Although it does use architectural principles, it is also based almost entirely on the bicycle wheel structure.
It’s not an exact copy at all and has more in common with Southgate tube station which is the real Daddy and classic flying saucer design before ‘flying saucer’ was ever coined.
When was the term “flying saucer” coined? Who said it and what was he/she/it/they referring to when the term popped out of the mouth?
Thank you for your encyclopedic references.
Cheers
The problem with many great architects is that all their interest is with how a building looks from the outside. The way a building functions inside for the everyday users is not their concern, especially if it conflicts with the “aesthetics” of the building.
Moreover, great architects only build great buildings in downtown environments where they can be seen and admired. Building a huge building on a suburban office campus is viewed as anti-urban and therefore bad.
So I say to the great architects of the world: F__k off. It is Apple’s money and they can do what they want with it.
Right. Jobs went with function over form.
They’re just jealous they didn’t get to participate in the design.
Close, but it’s the commission they miss out on that they’re PO’d about.
Before coming to conclusions about all architects, check out Eero Saarinen’s 1961 building for the T. J. Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights New York
Inside appearance ? We don’t know.
Functionality ? We know some.
Appearance ? Circle. Boring.
You’re so smart, design something that fulfils all of Steve Jobs’ design criteria, and isn’t, by your standards, boring.
Steve wanted a circle; he got one.
Its boring. Simple. Any other shape except for a square or squarish rectangle is less boring.
A plain circle shows a lack of imagination.
No it shows wonderful confidence in simple form with practicality.
A cardboard box is also practical under circumstances which require a box.
My only point of contention at this point is that a circle is boring. Too simple is too boring, kind of like some auto race courses. For more shapes, look around.
If u like circles so much, go draw or make some.
And yet you seem to be the one with the imagination problem… Interesting.
All those who think rectilinear is exciting, say: “Aye”.
Anyone?
It will be another generation before a Steve Jobs comes around.
FYI: Sir Norman Foster, Apple’s architect and collaborator with Steve Jobs on the new campus, is British and a Pritzker Prize winner (1999).
Yes and arguably the most successful in the World right now so clearly someone loves his work.
It’s in the shape of a victory lap.
It looks kinda like a continuous hoop or something.
No, it does not have to be a spaceship. The good folks at the AIA can call it a glazed doughnut (or bagel) if they prefer. Or “the Apple colosseum”.
I like the design. It seems like a really ‘green’ and visually pleasing solution to putting that many people onto a site. The scale is huge and the feat that the design accomplishes is huge: it is breathtaking in its scale and scope. I believe the design is also made possible by the pioneering work Apple has done with fabricating huge glass panels for its Apple stores. These huge panels were formerly not feasible to produce or utilize as a building material.
Since I know nothing about architecture, I can comment here with absolute authority.
Apple is building a new headquarters where one did not exist before.
No go sit in the corner of your round room.
Then how about the iShip, how come nobody has copied it, not even Samsung. Or is it just ahead of its time?
Jobs never invented the design of the new Apple HQ. It’s copied from Jacque Fresco, an Engineer who designed the exact type of building Apple is building. He shared the designs with the world back in the 70s. Jacque envisioned entire cities as circular. His vision lives on today in the Venus Project.
So if anyone is crediting Apple with “inventing” this building design, etc. now you know they didn’t, but copied it from someone else.
Fresco was self taught. He had no professional credentials at all. No one designed a ring except Mother Nature. Norman Foster designed the ring-shaped building that is in the process of becoming Apple’s new headquarters. The Venus Project does not “live.” It has never been actualized.
Your posting makes no sense at all.
It’s about how how the building allows employees to interact (and in some cases, not interact) with each other, and the center square . . . er . . . circle.
Something interior designers often get, but architects often don’t.
From the article, the Pixar headquarters had a center atrium where everyone hung out and mingled, helping to boost the energy of the people inside.
This circular design has no mingling center, only an outdoor park that you walk across to get to the other side. Maybe they will fill that in in the future into an enormous general space.
“Steve was a big believer in the power of accidental mingling…”
Yup he loved firing people at these accidental minglings !
I’m a CA + WA Architect & I LOVE THE SPACESHIP design by Sir Norman Foster + Steve Jobs!
My only question is: How do you number the rooms in a infinite circular building Mr. Foster?
You number the rooms using modular arithmetic, as Gauss established.