Episode 38: New Apple Campus is the Most Green Building in the World. Seriously?

Podcast – Architect Exam Prep

Apple announced this week that their new Apple campus in Cupertino, CA is the greenest building in the work. It’s 3.5 million square feet of office and laboratory space. Green? Say what?

Join Eric and I as we discuss Apple’s announcement this week about their new headquarters is the most green building in the world.

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Show Notes:

Apple says its new headquarters is the greenest building in the world.
Designed by Foster + Partners, known as the Spaceship.

STATISTICS:
2.8 million square feet of office space over a 175 acres campus
1 mile circumference
2 miles of walking running paths
$5 billion construction cost (+ $160 million cost for the land)
more interior space than the Empire State Building
clad in the world’s largest panels of curved glass
planted more than 6,000 trees
world’s largest naturally ventilated building
require no heating or air conditioning for nine months of the year
net zero energy with a 17 megawatt solar array
LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (pending)
4 stories above ground – 3 below
4,400: number of hollow concrete slabs that act as the building’s floors, ceilings, and HVAC system
60,000: how much some of these slabs weigh, in pounds
800: number of parking spaces on North Tantau for the Steve Jobs Theater
2,600: number of parking spaces in the subterranean parking garage (6,000 spaces above ground)
1,000: on-site car-charging stations
1,500: number of bikes on campus for employees to use to get around
20,135: size of the North Tantau Avenue Visitor Center, in square feet
30: the inner part of the circular building, in acres
Seven: number of cafes
3,000: how many people can be seated in the largest cafe, which is three levels
20,000: the size of the mezzanine, in square feet
1,750: number of seats on outdoor terraces
15,000: number of lunches that the on-site kitchens can crank out each day
58: height of the large doors on the main restaurant, in feet

It’s a marvel of architecture, engineering and landscape architecture, but is it green?

DETAILS:
Apple is remarkably dedicated to minimizing car use among its employees.
main Apple campus currently has a 28% transportation demand management rate, which means that 28 percent of employees at that campus use an alternate mode of transportation, other than a single-occupancy vehicle, to get to work
hoping to ultimately see it rise to 34%.

One third of workers are finding alternative methods to reach a suburban office park next to a major highway?

The fire suppression systems come from yachts. Craftspeople harvested the wood paneling at the exact time of year the late Steve Jobs demanded—mid-winter—so the sap content wouldn’t be ruinously high.

YouTube Drone Video

IMPACTS:
11,000 Parking Spaces
New headquarters will contain 3.4MM square feet of offices and laboratories.
BUT: the car parks will occupy 3.5MM square feet
It’s 1.8 million square feet for the parking spaces alone

How green can a building be if it forces its employees to drive to work?
one space for every 1.35 projected employees. That is an insanely great parking ratio, if you love parking Audis and Porsches. In other green buildings i have admired, the ratio is 0 per employee

from Lloyd Alter in Treehugger: the average commute time in the area is 30 minutes and the average speed a roaring 14.3 MPH, and the average passenger-miles per gallon is 34.3.
That crunches out to 6,300 gallons of gasoline per day, burned just getting all those apple engineers to and from work.. …there are bike lanes. For all the cyclists who can afford (or want) to live in Cupertino.

SOURCES/FURTHER READING:

One Thing Silicon Valley Can’t Seem to Fix

Apple Park: How many cafes, parking spaces, bicycles …

Apple Says Its New Headquarters Could Be the Greenest Building in the World. Not With 11,000 Parking Spaces!

Tim Cook calls the new Apple headquarters “the greenest building on the planet”. It’s not.

New Apple Park Drone Video Shows Off Steve Jobs Theater as Lobby Lights Up

Houses Near Apple Park Met With Increased Tourism and Rising Real Estate Values

What’s Wrong with Apple’s New Headquarters

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