“It is not the first aerial imagery of the spaceship, but it does reveal how the site is progressing since drone footage captured the foundations being laid in October last year,” Victoria Woollaston reports for The Daily Mail.
“The footage was captured by by helicopter firm Skycore using a 5K Red Epic Dragon from the Skycore Camera Ship fitted with a 1800mm lens,” Woollaston reports. “Covering 175 acres, the company’s futuristic ‘Campus 2’ headquarters will be a mile in circumference when it’s complete in 2016.”
“During a recent interview chief architect Sir Norman Foster gave an additional insight into how Apple’s ‘spaceship’ will be built – as well as the inspiration behind its circular and ‘organic’ design,” Woollaston reports. “This includes cars being ‘banished and buried’ in underground car parks, tarmac being replaced by greenery and windows that stretch the full height of the four-storey main building that slide open.”
AppleHQ-HD from E3VFX on Vimeo.
Read more in the full article here.
It was interesting to see some activity on the site, although it seemed minor. But the video quality was a wee bit uninspiring, and the watermark was just annoying. I prefer the drone videos which appear more professional to me.
Like you, I didn’t spot signs of great progress since the last one of these videos got posted, but I’m hopeful the new crews and companies will get things rolling soon.
Skycore would surely cringe at your comment given that they provide helicopter-based aerial photography services at many, many times the price of even a the best hex-copter-based photography services.
But, I agree. Given the heart-stopping price Skycore would charge to collect that footage, I also found it pretty lacking. I too found the watermark obnoxious and distracting.
I really don’t get all the hype around this torus shaped building. If it had, let’s say, been a huge cone dwarfing the size of an Egyptian pyramid with an all-glass CEO’s office glowing at the apex … now that I’d want to see. Beyond Apple’s environmental posturing (eco-claims), nothing is about this campus is new or out of the norm. Just Google round buildings. Lots of them.
I’ve informed Apple of your advice and they agree. They’ve decided to halt construction immediately. Brau, you have just made this world a better place. Oh wait…
Actually, the construction engineers had to develop new techniques to create the huge, curved glass panels that will comprise most of the building’s outer walls. The design for the ventilation that eliminates the need for AC in the hot months is also new.
Yes, you are correct. It should have been designed to look like the Apple logo.
And in homage to Tim Cook, it should be the old rainbow logo.
Do you know why the Pentagon is shaped like a pentagon? Because, at the time, they lacked the technology to make it a circle . . . with glass walls.
But apparently making it square would have been more innovative for some. Buildings evolve and introduce advances more as a drip feed than as one totally unique solution or running them would be a nightmare. The shape of this building, as with the Pentagon at least gives it a presence that has logical and emotional advantages too, we presume square is the right shape for buildings yet that is just a presumption made through familiarity, many of the most notable today as in history are anything but.
You are right about the emotional advantages.
Apple’s cube in New York serves no purpose what so ever.
It is also one of the smartest things Apple ever built.
That music is so dramatic!
Now that the disagreements are over… At about 2:30 you can see the arena skyway seating and the dais for Cook and the VPs taking shape. 😉
It is round. Much like iPhone Home Button.
Whenever I see these videos, I keep thinking about how cool it would be to live in those apartments. And how I enjoy seeing the “little” vehicles move around; they seem so small.
I’m lucky to live 5 minutes away from the spaceship but unfortunately at ground level all you can see is the green fence and a mountain of dirt through the main entrance
Cool, Apple owns a self made mountain. It would be even cooler if the used it as a base for a rollercoaster, with tunnels crossing the base and a giant loop for Apple employees.