We’ve been having fun tracking the progress of Apple’s new Cupertino, Calif., campus through a series of drone videos by an aerial videographer. Today the company made things official with the announcement that employees will begin occupying the 175-acre “Apple Park” in April, with 12,000 of them moving in over the course of six months. The company says construction of buildings and parkland will continue through the summer.
The centerpiece of the campus is the 2.8 million-square-foot circular main building, “clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass,” according to the company’s announcement. As Steve Jobs once told the Cupertino City Council, “It’s a little like a spaceship landed.”
Apple will name the 1,000-seat auditorium on the campus the “Steve Jobs Theater” in honor of the late Apple CEO. Apple says, “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 meadows and the main building.”
The company released this statement from Laurene Powell Jobs: “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. He would have flourished, as the people of Apple surely will, on this luminously designed campus.”
It’s the world’s largest naturally ventilated building, requiring no heating or air conditioning nine months of the year, according to the company. The building features 17 megawatts of solar panels on the roof. Apple says it’s one of the most energy efficient buildings in the world.
Good news, Apple fans: the campus will include a visitors center, open to the public.
