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Comment by thingie | Hacker News Reader

I work in a small office park located quite similarly on a grassy field locked entirely by some freeways and other large roads, though the buildings here are cheap and ugly, but even if they weren't, it'd still totally suck. It's isolated, not a part of the city, essentially, it's just a large parking lot (most of which is below the ground, but that doesn't really change anything).

It's quite disappointing. Maybe it's a marvel of architecture, but indeed it's a failure of urbanism (which, I believe, is much more important). It's 2011 and we're still building things while thinking in predefined square lots separated by roads? Such a shame.

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I worked at a place in Santa Monica called the Water Garden and it did seem isolated. And seeing cities like NYC and Taipei and even downtown Ann Arbor, I realize the benefits of new urbanism. However, I wonder if there is a new model emerging here in next generation corporate work centers.

Buildings will get so large that they are act as their own cities, creating space that can be returned to ecological use. Such buildings would be so large as to need their own rail systems.

But the problem is living spaces being separate from working spaces. I do hope that buildings like this get closely integrated into mass transportation. Not every couple work at the same place with their kids at the corporate school. If public transportation is not very intelligently integrated, the desolation of the parking lots that this beautiful building replaces will continue in the social dimension. From the presentation it seems as if this will be addressed by buses.

Not to laugh too much, because I agree with you, but...

You do realize that what you're positing (giant work buildings, close together, with all needed facilities nearby and lots of intra- and extra- transit access to nearby housing) is what most of us call an "urban downtown area", right?

You don't need to invent this. People already figured it out.

Y, I do! That companies seeking an isolated, concentrated workforce somehow vibes with new urbanism is a big stretch. Worse, I am biased by the aesthetic and technical qualities of this building concept, and it overwhelms practical considerations. This is exactly how so many planners bought into modernist architecture.

That sounds a LOT like what Walt Disney wanted EPCOT to be originally.

I often wish someone had taken his real dream (a closely knit city of work, living, and play areas that always worked towards the future rather than a lame [by comparison to what it should have been] theme park) and run with it.

"But the problem is living spaces being separate from working spaces."

Some companies have closely integrated living and working. Foxconn is one such company.

(some have suggested that Foxconn employee depression problems may be partly due to the employees living away from their friends and families, often at a considerable distance)

Naughty Dog?

The video game studio "Naughty Dog" has office there.

Isolation and centralization is useful for the corporation; they have more control over physical security, can manage it so employees tend to interact only with other employees, and it costs a lot less to have space for 12,000 employees off the interstate than to have them downtown (if Silicon Valley towns even have "downtowns;" I know far-flung Miami exurbs usually don't.)

Palo Alto and Mountain View have real places; the rest is pretty much all miserable sprawl. I miss working in downtown Palo Alto.

Cupertino "downtown" is a joke (I used to work there)... it's basically the intersection of two large streets (Stevens Creek at De Anza).

Likewise Sunnyvale and Santa Clara are quite anemic, but Los Gatos, Saratoga and even Los Altos aren't bad. MV and PA are great places to dine.

Cupertino is the only town I've worked in that never had a downtown.

Cupertino did have a downtown along Stevens Creek and De Anza, but the area changed significantly in the 1950s and 60s when streets were widened and DeAnza College was built. Cupertino certainly doesn't have much of a downtown now.

Santa Clara has a downtown?

Sunnyvale didn't really until they started building a clone of Santana Row that went belly up with the housing crash. Well I guess Historic Murphy Avenue sort of counted.

Apple should just make an underground Cupertino downtown at that site.

As a former Apple employee I cannot disagree more. Everyone at the mothership needs more sunlight, not less.

I can't even remember how many days I got to work when the sun was coming up and left as it was setting, or after it set. It was like a perpetual winter.

Well, that's probably why this building is made with glass all over. Sunlight for everyone.

San Mateo and Burlingame aren't too bad, and San Carlos has a surprisingly good downtown.

Oh, I wasn't thinking of places that far north as part of Silicon Valley. Didn't mean to exclude them.

That's sad to hear. I really love living in a Place.

I just think it's interesting that this building is the 180 degree total opposite of what Jobs built at Pixar HQ.

large parts of the us are still quite spoilt in terms of available land resources. in order to preserve the beautiful landscape of california it would be more reasonable to build more densly populated office areas. apple is just doing that, by increasing employee numbers to 12000 (or close to that). yet it´s a far cry compared to the density we deal with in the greater zurich area, let alone some asian cities.

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