Apple Park is the name of the new campus that the Apple company currently has under construction in Cupertino, the project being initiated more than 2 years ago. As a dream of Steve Jobs, Apple Park is going to host tens of thousands of employees of the Apple company and a 1000-seat amphitheater in the location is going to bear the name of the famous co-founder of Apple.
Until now known as Apple Campus 2, Apple Park is also presented in a series of images published today by the Apple company, its opening being initially postponed by Apple. Now, the company announces that Apple Park will open its doors in April, so then part of the employees will move there, and future conferences could be organized there, except for WWDC 2017.
Apple will initially move 12.000 employees to Apple Park in a period of 6 months, already hiring a number of people since November for the new location. The amphitheater that will bear the name of Steve Jobs is positioned on a hill and is the highest point in Apple Park, the entrance being dominated by a glass cylinder, typical of Apple Stores.
Apple Park - the new Apple campus will be opened in April
Apple Park will also have an Apple Store built in the location, plus a center where visitors will be able to enter, i.e. the same as what is happening in the current campus. It was once rumored that Apple Park would host over 30.000 Apple employees, but by the end of the year at least 12.000 of them will arrive there.
Apple Park also has state-of-the-art laboratories where Apple will develop its future products, where the next American innovations will be created. Apple Park will be one of the largest company campuses in the US and we are talking about an investment of over 3 billion dollars made by the Apple company for it.
Here are some images provided by Apple, to present Apple Park, but also some explanations regarding the new construction.
"Cupertino, California — Apple today announced that Apple Park, the company's new 175-acre campus, will be ready for employees to begin occupying in April. The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.
Envisioned by Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration, Apple Park is transforming miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley. The campus' ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world's largest panels of curved glass.
Steve would have turned 62 this Friday, February 24. To honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world, the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater. Opening later this year, the entrance to the 1,000-seat auditorium is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 165 feet in diameter, supporting a metallic carbon-fiber roof. The Steve Jobs Theater is situated atop a hill — one of the highest points within Apple Park — overlooking the meadows and the main building.
"Steve's vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We've achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy."
"Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness. It was his favorite setting for thought. Apple Park captures his spirit uncannily well," said Laurene Powell Jobs. "He would have flourished, as the people of Apple surely will, on this luminously designed campus."
"Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments. We have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products," said Jony Ive, Apple's chief design officer. "Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate and work together. We have been extremely fortunate to be able to work closely, over many years, with the remarkable architectural practice Foster + Partners.""
