Incredible Drone Video Showcases Progress on Apple’s Massive ‘Campus 2’

The upcoming second Apple campus, dubbed the “spaceship,” is arguably the epitome of Apple’s design style, and will truly show off the company’s attention to detail. The building will incorporate modern technology and modern business principals in effort to be one of the most eco-friendly and collaboration inducing buildings standing today.

The company continues to make progress building the new campus, especially as the completion date for the campus draws near. The campus itself spans a massive 2.8 million square feet, and this month has seen the near completion of the steel framing of the building, as well as the preparation of solar panels that will end up on the roof.

Not only that, but more of the massive curved glass panel windows have also been installed. These glass panels allow employees to look out over the center of the campus, which will serve as a huge garden with gorgeous orchards and areas to eat outside. In fact, the garden itself is also in its early stages, with a massive mound of dirt being located in the center of the campus, dirt which will eventually be used for landscaping and support as many as 7,000 trees.

This month the roof of the auditorium, which is located underground and is where Apple will host events, was also put in place. Even work has begun on the fitness center, which will be a huge 100,000 square feet.

It is currently believed that work on the new campus will finish in late 2016 or early 2017.

In many ways, the Apple 2 Campus is really a thing of the future. The project was first proposed by Steve Jobs himself back in 2006, located only a mile away from the company’s current campus. Apple intentionally chose to have the new campus located close to its old one because of the fact that it has been located in Cupertino since the mid 70s, and while moving to another area may have been cheaper, Apple’s tradition lies squarely in Cupertino. The land was estimated to cost a whopping $160 million, however in total the building project is estimated to cost around $500 million.

As mentioned the building will push the boundaries in many aspects of technology. For example, even though the building is so massive, it will run entirely on renewable energy, with the energy that it uses being drawn from on-site fuel cell plants and solar panels, installed on the roof of the building. The efforts for green energy are being overseen by a new employee to the company, Lisa Jackson, who previously was the head of the environmental agency for the Obama administration before joining Apple with the title of environmental director.

According to Apple, the design of the building is aimed at promoting collaboration. The inner and outer rims of the buildings are simply huge walkways.

“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,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News last month. “We found that rectangles or squares or long buildings or buildings with more than four stories would inhibit collaboration…We wanted this to be a walkable building, and that’s why we eventually settled on a circle.”

The building of the campus is truly a testament to Apple’s ongoing success. While the company has projected a rough upcoming quarter, and while it was recently overtaken by Google as the most valuable company in the world, Apple is still worth over $700 billion, and a building like the Apple 2 Campus is the company’s crowning jewel.

Apple certainly seems to have a bright future, and it will be interesting to see whether or not the building based on collaboration will have any obvious effect on the company’s products and product design.

It is likely that over the next few months we will see substantial changes in the Apple 2 campus as it nears the completion of its being built.

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