Apple’s giant spaceship portal opened for the first time — a strange attractor beam for the employees. Wait… “that’s no moon”
After some safety beeping, the 440 ton, 4-story-tall curved glass doors sloooowly slid to the side of the Apple HQ ring. It’s hard to describe how open and airy the Caffè Macs employee dining area becomes with this transformation, but this Apple AR perspective gives a sense of it.
The design touches remind me of Jobs’ attention to architectural detail (channeled by Jony Ive). Jobs experienced a visceral agitation with visual imperfection. Case in point: the red fire extinguishers bespotting the otherwise perfectly smooth, curved surfaces. After much negotiation with the regulatory bodies, they came to agreement on the flush cabinetry and iconography to hide the extinguishers that are adjacent to every conference room door.
The glass is so clear as to seem invisible. It is also not greenish from the common iron-oxide impurities found in plate glass. The undersides of the overhead walkways have light diffusers, tuned to a dimness to be barely noticeable but sufficient to erase their shadow.
The entire ring rests on giant spherical bearings so it can rotate in earthquakes, and the utility lines have quick disconnects (as seen on rocket launches) were the building to go for a spin. This allows them to get back online within a day of a quake up to 8.2
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