City of Cupertino posts further details, renders of Apple mega-campus | Hacker News Reader

City of Cupertino posts further details, renders of Apple mega-campus

appleinsider.com

32 pointsBud21 comments

I hope they manage an appropriate change of address.

Maybe ∞, Mobius Strip? (Any torus-related puns must be strictly grounded in toplology)

One Aleph One Circle?

Interesting: Apple is also looking to decrease its reliance on electricity provided by the city power grid by building its on-site Central Plant. What are the benefits of having a dedicated power plant I wonder?

The three reasons that jump out at me would be: 1) Redundancy. 2) Cupertino wants them off their grid. 3) Or they're going to have a unique power footprint that they don't want to share with the world.

Unique power footprint... hmm... like a Stargate? A Doomsday Machine?

A couple of ideas: 1. They may feel they can generate it more efficiently (aka cheaply) or with fewer disruptions in service 2. Maybe they're looking at alternative energy sources to further control their environmental footprint

They probably want to have backup generators for 100% of their energy needs, anyways. To make such a setup reliable, they need to have personnel on standby operating it, need to do test runs, etc.

Given that and the scale of this thing, they probably think it is cheaper to run those generators permanently. Of course they would still need some extra generators to allow for maintenance and defects, but I guess that's peanuts compared to the startup cost of having the generators for the entire building.

The last article said it was mainly so they could use green energy like solar and geo-thermal.

In addition to being able to control the fuel source, the main inefficiency in a power plant is wasted heat. If you've got the ability to use the waste heat from a power plant, say to heat water, then you can increase the overall efficiency significantly. "Combined heat and power" or "cogen" installations are not uncommon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration

I do not think Cupertino has much use for 'heating water', most of the year.

Luckily, it also appears to be possible to use the excess heat for cooling stuff. That would be much more popular in Cupertino, I guess.

Maybe they also want redundancy for on-site "iCloud" data centers.

The aesthetics of steam turbines fit right into the Apple ethos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dampfturbine_Laeufer01.jpg

So, where are the parking lots? I see a building and a bunch of trees. Underground, maybe?

I remember something about underground parking from Steve Job's presentation to the council.

The plan is for (1) a big underground parking lot (2) a separate 4-story parking structure. In Jobs' pitch to the city council, the separate aboveground parking structure was a long rectangle on the south side of the property, near the freeway.

Well, seeing as they have as much cash as the country, it only makes sense that they have their own Penta^H^H^H^H^HCirclegon.

Technically, it's a donut.

Toroid!

It shall be shapped like an apple.

Well, actually, it's shaped like a donut. Which, if you ask me, is definitely indication of architectural merit.

I hope it's a flying donut.

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