Project Profiles

Apple Park

Opened in 2017, the Apple corporate headquarters building in Cupertino, California, is built with huge walls of glass that allow employees to look out from both sides of the ‘spaceship’ ring.
Category

Exterior

General Commercial

Interior

LEED

Office Buildings

Region

Western

Project

Apple Park

Cupertino, California

Architect

Foster + Partners

San Francisco, California

Owner

Apple Inc.

Cupertino, California

The purveyor of the iPhone, iPad and Mac expanded its footprint in 2017 with a building dubbed the "Spacecraft." This campus includes four levels of circular office space totaling 2,800,000 sq. ft. and two below-grade levels mostly for parking totaling 1,500,000 sq. ft. The project achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification as an environmentally friendly project. The circle’s interior and exterior is mostly constructed of glass and polished concrete, and solar panels that sit atop the circle.

In an interview with Architectural Record, Norman Foster, Foster + Partners founder and chairman, explains that in the original plans, there was no circular ‘spaceship’ structure. “It didn’t start as a circular building, it really grew into that. So the idea of one building with a great park was really borne out of a very intensive process,” he says. And in keeping with Apple products, Steve Jobs wanted no seam, gap or paintbrush stroke showing.