Apple unveils detailed model of upcoming ‘Spaceship’ campus

Dai Sugano

Last week, Apple cleared another hurdle in its effort to land its ‘Spaceship’ campus in Cupertino by 2016, garnering a thumbs up from the city’s planning commission. Now it just has to win the approval of city council, and it’s home free.

And the company is pulling out all of the stops ahead of next week’s city council vote. It’s begun sending out brochures asking residents of Cupertino for their support, and earlier today, executives introduced a 3D model of the campus…

Dai Sugano

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer and Senior Director of Real Estate and Facilities Dan Whisenhunt were on hand this morning as Apple showed off a very detailed model of its Cupertino ‘Spaceship’ campus to The Mercury News.

Here’s Peter Oppenheimer offering up some details on the project:

“You see the energy and the love and the attention to detail that we’ve put into this,” he told this newspaper during a sneak-peek of a top-secret, living-room sized model of the building. “We have treated this project just as we would any Apple product. And this will be a place for the most creative and collaborative teams in the industry to innovate for decades to come.” 

“The concept of the building,” said Oppenheimer, “is collaboration and fluidity. It’ll provide a very open-spaced system, so that at one point in the day you may be in offices on one side of the circle and find yourself on the other side later that day.”

The campus, which was first introduced by Steve Jobs himself at a city council meeting back in 2011, encompasses more than 2.8 million square feet and is designed to house office space, various amenities and roughly 12,000 employees.

Dai Sugano

The main building has curved glass windows and polished concrete ceilings and a massive parking structure topped with solar panels. Additionally, the plans include an auditorium for events, a fitness center, and additional space for R&D.

Here’s one of the brochures Apple has been sending out (via TechCrunch):

apple brochure

Within the brochures, Apple asks residents of Cupertino to support the new Apple campus by emailing the Cupertino city council and attending the October 15 vote. From there, the last step will be the ‘final vote of approval’ on November 19.

Apple says that it intends to break ground shortly after the campus is approved, and it’s still on track for a 2016 opening.