Mike Wuerthele
The drone flights around Apple Park have not stopped following opening of the campus, with the latest footage showing still-progressing landscaping, and most of the facilities very near 100 percent completion.
The footage is by Matthew Roberts, the same pilot who has provided most of the video over time. His captions on the video show not just the landscaping, but differences since the last video, including the maintenance center, the fitness locations, and more.
On Feb. 22, Apple officially named the "spaceship" campus under construction. The entire facility is now called "Apple Park," with the 20-foot tall and 165 foot in diameter glass auditorium honoring one of the founders of the company and named the "Steve Jobs Theater."
Before the massive construction effort started, the area was Hewlett Packard's land, and was essentially completely paved over. Apple's demand for trees is reportedly putting pressure on the local market, forcing contractors to source from outside California. The final tree count is expected to approach 9,000, with apple, apricot, cherry, and persimmon trees dotting the landscape.
An environmentally-friendly design was paramount to Jobs's vision, and Apple's related Phase 2 project adds additional workspace adjacent to the main headquarters, and includes a small data center powered by the on-site solar farm, fuel cells, and other sources of renewable energy.
A new micro-grid installed on the campus is reportedly capable of delivering 17 megawatts of power from solar alone, and handling about 75 percent of the facility's power requirements. The solar installation is supplemented by Bloom Energy-provided fuel cells, similar to those installed at the North Carolina data center.
Apple held its first official event in Steve Jobs Theater on Sept. 12 with the unveiling of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X.
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10 Comments
Looks great! I want to see it in the late spring when all of the foliage is grown up and hopefully all of the grass is also fully grown.
I still want to see a complete documentary of how this came to fruition, from planning/design, to building and its challenges, to completion with a tour of the buildings.
What an amazing project. I'm glad I got to witness its monthly progress through dedicated people willing to use their own drone to record footage and then edit and upload the footage.
I love all the attention to detail: the lower garage entrances with the curved instead of square corners on the side walls; the Steve Jobs Theatre lobby with the cylindrical glass elevator; and the standardized bikes all over the place.