Wired has been given an exclusive look inside the spaceship ring of the Apple Campus, revealing the ‘pod’ approach that was the brainchild of Steve Jobs.
The site has posted a small selection of teaser photos (below), and promises that video is coming soon …
The Wired piece is a long-form article that delves into the background to the design in significant detail. For example, the way that a clover leaf design morphed into the circle.
Steve Levy describes seeing the Ring for the first time in the steel and glass.
According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, there was another factor. When Jobs showed a drawing of the clover leaf to his son, Reed, the teenager commented that from the air, the building would look like male genitalia. The next day Jobs repeated the observation to the architects, warning them that from that point on, “you’re never going to be able to erase that vision from your mind.” (Foster and Behling say they have no recollection of this.)
By June 2010 it was a circle. No one takes full credit for the shape; all seem to feel it was inevitable all along. “Steve dug it right away,” Foster says.
Before Jony Ive takes him through the full-height doors to the cafe. Each door is 85 feet by 54 feet and weights 360,000 pounds.
As you’d expect, huge amounts of thoughts has gone into the smallest of details, much of it driven personally by Steve Jobs, says Stefan Behling, one of Foster+Partner’s project leads.
Ive raises an eyebrow. “Well,” he says. “It depends how you define need, doesn’t it?”
Foster+Partners had to persuade Steve of the need for the fins that we’re now used to seeing as an integral part of the design.
At one point, Behling recalls, Jobs discussed the walls he had in mind for the offices: “He knew exactly what timber he wanted, but not just ‘I like oak’ or ‘I like maple.’ He knew it had to be quarter-cut. It had to be cut in the winter, ideally in January, to have the least amount of sap and sugar content. We were all sitting there, architects with gray hair, going, ‘Holy shit!’”
While the cost of the project has been criticized by some shareholders, CEO Tim Cook is unapologetic.
The photos show the building fins; a tree being positioned; Cook in one of the completed pods; an early sketch of a pod; light fixtures that can direct light up, down or both; an empty pod; concave and convex buttons beneath a desk to adjust the height; and door handles with no visible fixings.
The full-length piece is well worth a read.
What are your thoughts on the pod concept and design details seen? As ever, please share your views in the comments.
