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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing beautiful or inspiring about a suburban office complex in the middle of nowhere. To the contrary, the Apple office park epitomizes many of the things wrong with America: turning the workplace into an island unto itself, and turning land that could be used for nature into a useless manicured lawn.

It would have been far more efficient to build the thing as a few 12-14 story buildings in the nearest city.

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Equivalent 12-14 story buildings are not pleasant to work in; in particular there is far less natural light, so only the privileged managers get window light.

[edit] Plus: "It is also the site of the world’s largest naturally ventilated building, projected to require no heating or air conditioning for nine months of the year." That's probably tough to do with a box in the city.

That's nice, but it also does encircle an enormous amount of usable land in an extremely high-demand real estate market and turn it into a private park accessible only to employees of the company.

The land in question used to be anonymous office buildings owned by...HP or someone like that, if I remember.

Apple has taken away precisely what from the public by replacing it with this?

The opportunity to use that land for anything better than a private park for Apple employees.

I don't think anyone here is saying this is awful. It's just not necessarily praiseworthy.

Does the Apple building have more light than skyscrappers with mostly glass walls?

The standard 12 story mid-rise buildings in DC are built with glass walls so that light doesn't get caught in outer offices.

The last few buildings I worked in had all the director-level offices in the center (glassed in), with the employee area taking up the ring around that. Plenty of daylight for everyone.

Cupertino is not "the middle of nowhere." And 12 story buildings are a terrible idea in an earthquake zone with soft ground.

The amount of space we use for office parks is tiny in comparison with the amount of space we use for agriculture. Only 3% of the land used in the US is urban sprawl-- less than the total acreage of a single crop, alfalfa hay. https://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002h...

Of course, Cupertino's public transportation sucks. But so does San Francisco's, even though it's tiny. Maybe stop bragging about where you live, and find something else to be a snob about.

I'll add, Cupertino appears not to allow buildings taller than 4 storeys as well. The skyscraper idea is a non-starter unless Apple relocated to downtown San Jose.

Then Apple people would talk to non-Apple people. That's not allowed.

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