Progress continues to be made on the high-tech campus at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.
One of the site’s most notable features—the enormous spaceship-style headquarters building that will serve as the area’s centerpiece—was revealed in model form in October 2013. The sprawling building will be the campus’s centerpiece, consisting of a ring-shaped structure highlighted with architectural glass features and topped by an extensive network of solar panels. The building will include a large auditorium, a walking/jogging path and a fitness center, among other amenities.
The overall construction project will comprise some 2.8 million square feet of office space, according to published reports. Completion of the campus is expected in mid-2016.
The late Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, first mentioned spacecraft in reference to the new headquarters building and campus in 2011. He compared the look of the new construction to looking “like a spaceship landed.”
Existing models and images of the Apple campus construction support Jobs’s description, showing an extremely large but streamlined building. The area is expected to be heavily landscaped both inside and outside the ring. An underground parking facility will house visitors’ and employees’ vehicles. Facilities such as the building cafeteria will make use of both indoor and outdoor spaces for employee enjoyment and comfort.
Apple reports that the “spaceship headquarters” is being designed to be highly energy efficient and one of the largest-scale environmentally sustainable projects in the world. The structure is intended to operate entirely on renewable energy sources, such as fuel cells and solar energy acquired through rooftop solar panels.
Construction Monitor is a leading source of building permit data and other information on the current state of the construction industry in the United States. Contact us today for more information on construction trends in California and across the country, as well as information on how major building projects like the Apple campus construction will affect the construction industry.
Image via Shutterstock.com