Apple Park

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I visited Apple Park (Apple's new campus) a few times. I could tell you why I was there.... but as they said in Sherlock Holmes "The Hounds of Baskerville" and Top Gun), then I'd have to kill you. I shot a bunch of shots when they first opened... then later they started cracking down on that. "No Photos please". Um, OK, no more photos. I get that they're trying to control their image.

If a picture is 1,000 words, then this is a long article

Conclusion

In the end, it's very pretty and won all sorts of architecture awards and has a feel that's a cross between an Apple Store, a 1970's SciFi show (say Logan's run), and some austere Norwegian chic decor.

There are things like glass barriers and no bannisters to prevent you from falling off the higher floors. I did not see any face-prints from the rumors of walking into walls from the Wired article. It didn't seem that hard to figure out where walls and doors were to me, though some handles are unique. The meeting rooms have aluminum louver blinds inside two panes of glass, so when in use, you push a button and the walls go opaque in an old-school method (no LCD glass).

This isn't my taste in architecture. It's gorgeous, in it's own minimalist way. But for me, good architecture is marrying Form and Function together into a whole. This feels like Jonathan Ive's, form over function. Open Floor-plans, not enough meeting places, hard echo'ing surfaces, and everything spread out through a ginormous campus. Pretty and airy, but there's no good way to organize things conveniently close in this kind of space, so everyone is getting their steps in. Which might be good for health/exercise, but is not efficient for actually getting things done. (A simple grid of taller and interconnected buildings, would have worked much better).

So it's not my thang, but then Apple gets to decide what their own thang and brand should look like.

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📚 References