Apple Campus 2 Qualifies for Expedited Environmental Review

Unless the campus has underground tunnels criss-crossing from one end to the other... it's going to be a pain to go from one end to the other.

Or they can, you know, go outside and walk across the gigantic park in the middle...

This building is going to be awesome!

I hope this means more Apple products :D :apple:

You cut through the courtyard....

People who do not live in the SF Bay Area have a hard time understanding you can move freely outdoors with not much more than a light coat and occasional umbrella 355 days of the year. :)

edit: hilarious a statement of fact about weather in Cupertino gets me a vote down.

They have already stated that the new campus will be closed to the public.

Are we absolutely certain they don't have a particle accelerator in the plans somewhere? ;)

Several posters here have identified the most obvious issue, which is the vast scale of the building and the problems inherent with traveling from one side of the building to the other.

HP employees were often seen taking a quick walk around the entire current building complex after lunch. It's not that big, and the round building will be smaller in total circumference.

Third, the plan dictated the complete isolation of this building from the surrounding grid. It's a single, gigantic segregated land use requiring everyone who wants to do anything but work or eat at the company cafeteria to get into their car and drive somewhere else.

This site is right across the street from a large Asian market complex and several restaurants, and about 4 blocks walk from a medium size mall with department stores, theaters and restaurants. Maybe 4 blocks walk from a park and community garden. There were HP employees who could walk to work from the suburban neighborhoods across the street.

they should invest that money and bail out California from going bankrupt lol

They are already one of the largest tax payers in the state.

Here we ******** go. AGAIN.

Fine.

Pretty much everything, from what I have seen thus far. It seems clear that the central organizing principle here is the circular plan. It's the kind of sexy form that Steve loved in consumer products, but plan abstraction is not necessarily a good place to start with architecture.

Several posters here have identified the most obvious issue, which is the vast scale of the building and the problems inherent with traveling from one side of the building to the other. Maybe Steve is having a conversation with God at this very moment and has persuaded Him to make rain fall less often over Cupertino, but failing intervention from the Almighty, employees in this building are going to be taking a lot of long hikes.

Probably underground radial tunnels. Not to mention that walking around in NorCal is pretty fine about 300 days of the year. The other sixty days? Well, it sucks, because there's this wet stuff falling out of the sky. It's not like it snows on the valley floor in Cupertino.

(Well, okay, it did in 1976, but it melted before lunchtime that day. And it was a sunny morning.)

Second, the circular plan means that the building will be essentially devoid of the kinds of visual cues that we use to know where we are. Every angle of the building will look the same, at least externally. Internally I'd expect much the same problem to occur. This building is probably going to be very disorienting.

Not much different than a square or any other shaped building. The various "zones" of the building could be color-coded (like parking garages). Also, the light from the windows will probably give people a clue to where they are in the building.

Third, the plan dictated the complete isolation of this building from the surrounding grid. It's a single, gigantic segregated land use requiring everyone who wants to do anything but work or eat at the company cafeteria to get into their car and drive somewhere else. A less dogmatic approach to architectural objectification would have accommodated a building more integrated into the place where it exists and have been more functional in that respect as well.

Christ, we are talking about Cupertino. There's no place to GO in Cupertino. There's no downtown area. Where are you gonna go? BJ's? Paul and Eddie's? The Target on Stevens Creek Boulevard? SQ Noodle? Vivi's? Yamagami's Nursery?

The two most crowded places at lunchtime on a weekday are the main post office and the Whole Foods Market express checkout lines.

Oh yeah, I guess you've never been to Cupertino. In that case, stop talking about it like you know the place.

Cupertino is a bunch of office complexes. The rest of it is nondescript residential areas that happen to feed some of the South Bay's best public school districts. Other than that, Cupertino is entirely nondescript.

Campus 2 has a shuttle service area for commuting to other complexes (like 1 Infinite Loop).

Those are just some of the more apparent functional issues with this building.

Yeah, keep criticizing a building in a town where you have never ever stepped foot in.

I've never been to Palookaville, but it probably isn't much different than Cupertino.

And yet, your opinion is neither educated nor informed, and still you believe it to be just as valid as any other. These 'net debates always seem to come down to the same formula eventually. I only wonder why it took so long for this card to be played.

When one borrows their critique whole hog from others its hardly proof of expertise or a superior understanding of the topic at hand. (Seriously did you even consider the descriptor "retrograde" before reading the LA Times editorial?) When one continues to argue their point without digging into the details of a project and to dismiss one of Apple's key requirements for the project (privacy), as most critics have, as irrelevant to the architecture, to argue that the building should be more inclusive of amenities that are both nonexistent in the surroundings and counter to the design directive, makes your critique nothing more than an academic exercise and wearisome.

When one demands they be called an expert and then insults the other party in the dialogue it signals they are a douche. And finally when they get the response they were trying to illicit and feign it was there all along, they are a child.

Please, continue to bask in the glory of your own reflection. I am neither impressed by your understanding of architecture or convinced you have more to offer in this discussion than a parrot.