The Apple Campus is the headquarters of Apple Inc., a consumer electronics and PC corporation, located in Cupertino, California. The facility is referred to as a campus because its design resembles the campus of a university, with the buildings arranged around green spaces. The campus is located on the southeast corner of Interstate 280 and De Anza Boulevard, and occupies 32 acres (130,000 m2)[1] in six buildings spread over four floors. Each building is numbered with one digit on the private U-shaped street Infinite Loop, so named because of the programming concept of an infinite loop. The street, in conjunction with Mariani Avenue, actually does form a circuit (or cycle) that can circulate indefinitely. The main building has the address 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. Employees refer to these buildings as IL1 to IL6 for Infinite Loop 1-6. Besides the buildings on Infinite Loop, the whole Apple Campus occupies an additional thirty buildings scattered throughout the city to accommodate its employees. Some of these buildings are leased (with an average rental cost of USD $2.5 per square foot),[2] while others are of recent acquisition; the land the new buildings occupy will be used for future construction of a second campus in the city with the aim of centralizing the activities of the company. In total, including nine newly acquired buildings on Pruneridge Avenue, the company controls more than 3,300,000 square feet (310,000 m2) for its activities in the city of Cupertino. This represents almost 40% of the 8,800,000 square feet (820,000 m2) of office space and facilities for research and development available in the city.
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Until 1992, before construction of the campus, Apple's corporate headquarters were located in the building Mariani One (20525 Mariani Ave, Cupertino). The land east of Mariani One across De Anza Boulevard where the campus was built was formerly occupied by the company Four Phase Systems (later acquired by Motorola). It has an area of 850,000 square feet (79,000 m2). The campus was completed in 1993 by the Sobrato Development Company.[3] Before 1997, activities held on the campus were exclusively research and development. Until that time the buildings were referred to as R&D 1-6. With return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997, changes were made to the campus: Apple increased the number of occupied buildings, and many activities not related to R&D were moved to the buildings on Infinite Loop, at which point they began to be referenced by their IL # designations. Steve Jobs left additional marks on the campus, for example, banning employees' pets and dramatically improving the cafeteria menu.
On the night of August 12, 2008 a fire broke out on the second floor of the building Valley Green 6. The firefighters worked for hours until the following morning to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported, but the forty year old building suffered USD $2 million of fire damage.[4]
On Wednesday, May 6, 2009 an envelope containing white powder of unknown nature was found in the cafeteria of the building IL4 by an Apple employee. The building was subsequently evacuated. The Fire Department of Santa Clara County arrived at the scene at 3:30 pm, wearing hazmat suits. Preliminary tests showed that dust did not represent a threat, and the substance was taken to a laboratory for further analysis.
In April 2006, Steve Jobs announced to the city council of Cupertino that Apple had acquired nine contiguous properties to build a second campus in the city one mile east of the old campus.[5] Apple has had a presence in Cupertino since one year after its founding in 1976, which is why the company decided to build in the area rather than move to a cheaper location. When completed it is expected that the centralized campus will house some 13,000 employees.The purchase of the property was done through the company Hines Interests[6] who hid the name of Apple as a buyer to keep costs from skyrocketing. Among the sellers of the properties were listed Summerhill Homes (a plot of 8 acres (32,000 m2)) and Hewlett-Packard (three abandoned buildings of their campus in Cupertino, among others). The land cost was estimated at USD $160 million. The new campus design will take 3 to 4 years, and the project cost is estimated at USD $500 million. Until April 2008, Apple had not sought the necessary permits to begin construction, so it was estimated that the project would not be ready in 2010 as originally proposed; however, the buildings on the site are being currently held by Apple for its operations.
In November 2010 it was revealed by MercuryNews[7] that Apple had bought an additional 98 acres (400,000 m2) no longer used by HP, just north across Pruneridge Ave. This space used to be the HP campus in Cupertino before it was relocated to Palo Alto. The estimated amount paid for the land is USD $300 million. Additionally, El Economista[8] revealed that worldwide acclaimed architect Norman Foster is in charge of the design of the new campus.
On June 7 2011, then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave a presentation to Cupertino City Council, detailing the architectural design of the new building and its environs. The new campus, on a site now totalling 175 acres (0.71 km2), is planned to house up to 13,000 employees in one central four-storied circular building of approximately 2,800,000 square feet (260,000 m2) (including a café for 3,000 sitting people) surrounded by extensive landscape (with parking mainly underground and the rest centralized in a parking structure). Other facilities include a 1,000 seat auditorium, 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) of R&D facilities, a fitness center and a dedicated generating plant as primary source of electricity (powered by natural gas and other more environmentally sound means). [9]
Steve Jobs also stated "It's got a gorgeous courtyard in the middle - and a lot more. It's a circle, so it's curved all the way round. This is not the cheapest way to build something." Every pane of glass in the building is curved. The existing ratio of built-up area to landscaping on the site is 80:20, but the new ratio will be 20:80, that is, 80% of the site area will be greenery.