Apple announces Apple Park will open in April

Apple has announced that Apple Park, which we have long known as Apple Campus 2, will be open to employees beginning April. The company will be relocating 12,000 employees to Apple Park in Santa Clara Valley in across six months of time, as the construction continues through the summer.

The 2.8 million-square-foot ring-shaped (or spaceship like) building is the world’s largest panels of curved glass, notes Apple, which will have secure research and development facilities. There’s also a 100,000-square-foot fitness center especially for Apple employees. The multi-dollar campus will run entirely on renewable energy, and is one of the most energy-efficient building in the world, says CEO Tim Cook.

Apple Park, which has 175 acres of land area, will have its theater named after the late co-founder Steve Jobs. Situated atop a hill within the Apple Park, the Steve Jobs Theater is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 65 feet in diameter, with a metallic carbon-fiber roof. The theater can seat 1,000 people, and will be the stage for future product launches.

“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.”

With an Apple Store and cafe open to public, the campus will include a place dedicated to visitors as well. It will be a nice time visiting Apple Park later this year! What do you think of Apple Park? Has Apple been able to make it the way Steve wanted it?

/ Apple