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Apple updates plans, renderings for new ‘spaceship’ campus

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Apple Inc. has updated the plans for its ‘spaceship’ campus, offering a few new details about the massive facility that the late Steve Jobs pitched to the Cupertino City Council before his death.

The plans were posted on Cupertino.org this week, revealing that the roof of the circular main building will be covered in photovoltaic solar panels.

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‘Apple proposes to create Apple Campus 2 -- an integrated 21st century campus surrounded by green space,’ the updated plans said. ‘This new development will provide a serene and secure environment reflecting Apple’s values of innovation, ease of use and beauty. The state-of-the-art office, research and development facilities include strategies to minimize energy demand, reduce car travel and increase the use of reclaimed water.’

The main building totals 2.8 million square feet in four stories and can accommodate as many as 13,000 employees, the plans said. Jobs, when he proposed the new campus to the Cupertino City Council in June, said that Apple had about 12,000 employees in the Silicon Valley city.

‘Campus amenities will include a striking cafe within the main building, a separate corporate fitness center and a corporate auditorium seating 1,000 people,’ the plans said. ‘Parking will be provided under the main building and in one multistory parking structure.’

Apple is promising that its new campus, which is expected to open by about 2015, will be environmentally friendly with an on-site power plant ‘that will supply the majority of the power needed for the campus.’

The website 9to5Mac has estimated that the solar-panel-covered roof will make the new Apple campus one of the largest solar power generators in the U.S.

The new site will also be home to 300,000 square feet of separate research facilities that ‘will house technical support functions that need to be located adjacent to the main building.’

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The exterior of the main building will be covered in curved glass. Apple has said that landscaping will make up 80% of the 150-acre site that it purchased from PC-maker Hewlett-Packard Co.

‘It’s a little like a spaceship landed,’ Jobs said of the proposed building before the Cupertino City Council. ‘It’s a circle, and so it’s curved all the way around. As you know if you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There’s not a straight piece of glass on this building, it’s all curved.

‘And we’ve used our experience in making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use.’

Check-out some of the new renderings Apple has submitted after the jump.


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Steve Jobs pitches new Apple ‘spaceship’ campus to Cupertino City Council

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

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