Apple's forthcoming headquarters in Cupertino is called the Apple Campus 2, although many have called the establishment a spaceship, and it's not that difficult to see why. The neo-futuristic building, occupying 176 acres, will integrate glass into its architecture generously, with the notion of a spaceship spurred on further by its clean and minimalist round shape.
Construction of the Apple Campus 2 is almost finished, and before the glass doors officially pull open, SkyIMD has created a neat aerial mosaic of the site stitched from overhead shots of the area below.
Apple Campus 2 Aerial Shot
The mosaic features the behemoth-like structure, pristine and nearly finished, girding an enclosure of deserted land. Apple plans to cover 80 percent of the space with greens and different fruit trees, so take the mosaic as a "before" and put it side by side the Apple Campus 2 when it reaches Steve Jobs' original vision.
The aerial photo is 34,111 pixels wide and 49,487 pixels tall, taken with a 100-megapixel Phase One iXU RS1000 with a Rodenstock 90mm lens. The camera was attached to a Cessna 172, which had flown 2,000 feet above ground. It was made on Dec. 22, reports MacRumors.
Apple Campus 2
The Apple Campus 2 will have its own research and development facilities - 300,000 square feet of it, in fact.
The colossal size of the building is broken by sparsely scattered cafes, lobbies, and entrances.
The Apple Campus 2 was designed by British firm Foster+Partners. The firm's impressive portfolio includes the Wembley Stadium, the Canary Wharf Underground Station, and the London Stansted Airport, among others. Foster+Partners' chairman said that London Square was partly the inspiration behind the Apple Campus 2, similarly featuring its buildings-surrounding-a-park design.
Foster said that Jobs wanted the campus to reflect California landscapes from his childhood. Seven thousand trees will populate the area, and to accomplish this Apple hired a Stanford University arborist, who is also tasked to restore some of the indigenous plant life. The final landscape will feature jogging paths and walking trails around the building.
Apple expects the campus to be finished at the beginning of 2017, two years later than the intended completion date. Official employee ingress begins during the first quarter. The landscaping work, however, will be completed later in the middle of the year.
Apple is also building a new headquarters at the Battersea Power Station in London, which is an iconic 500,000-square-foot building, one of the biggest office spaces in the city.
What do you think of Apple's glass-laden headquarters? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
