New details have emerged about Apple's circular "spaceship" campus which is currently under construction, and it sounds like the interior of the headquarters will be just as futuristic as its curved-glass exterior.
Apple designer Jony Ive discussed the extensive work that went into designing the new campus in a lengthy New Yorker profile, where he revealed that the floors and ceilings will be unified as "forty-four hundred precast-concrete units that will have a floor on one side, a ceiling on the other, and a cooling system between them."
Ive calls these custom floor and ceiling pieces "void slabs," all of which are currently being constructed in a factory built by Apple in Woodland, California.
Apple A design rendering of Apple's new campus.
Manufacturing these 4,400 concrete slabs is only one example of Apple's attention to detail. The new campus has faced delays and cost increases in the past due to lack of "fit and finish," mostly due to strict requirements put in place by Steve Jobs, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Jobs reportedly insisted that gaps between surfaces be 1/32 of an inch instead of the standard 1/8 inch, and that the polished concrete ceilings be cast in a mold and hoisted into place to guarantee uniformity, which "left one person involved in the project speechless."
Ive appears to have continued Jobs' intense attention to detail, mentioning that he had "a big fight" in order to be able to simplify the control panels on the campus elevators. Ive also had a hand in the design of the interior staircases and signs.
City of Cupertino
When it's finished in 2016, Apple's Campus 2 will eventually feature curved glass panels, an underground parking lot, a private auditorium for keynotes and product launches, and a 360-degree view of nature.
"This is something that Steve cared about passionately," Ive said of the campus to The New Yorker. "There is a bittersweetness here, because this is obviously about the future, but every time I come here it makes me think of the past as well - and just the sadness. I just wish he could have seen it."
You can check out a photo timeline of the project's construction progress right here.