If you've been wondering how things are progressing for Apple's shiny new "spaceship" campus, the San Jose Mercury News (via 9to5 Mac) has some new information for you. With the help of a scale model Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer, showed the newspaper, it's possible to get better idea of what the actual 175-acre site will look like.
That's big news, because up until now we've only seen unfinished concept art and digital renderings from Foster + Partners. With Oppenheimer's model, we get a chance to see what the grounds will look like once the project goes live. And just in time, too--the final vote before the Cupertino City Council to approve the project will take place on October 15.
Source: San Jose Mercury News
In Oppenheimer's words, "The concept of the building is collaboration and fluidity. It'll provide a very open-spaced system, so that at one point in the day you may be in offices on one side of the circle and find yourself on the other side later that day." Apple says the circular design of the main building encourages walkability, and the adjoining parking garages and buildings will have solar panels on their roofs.
The 'spaceship' nickname is appropriate, as the cost for all this is astronomical. Bloomberg earlier said the project was an "investor relations nightmare," as estimates for the project's cost have exploded from around $3 billion to $5 billion. It's possible Apple will end up saving enough to justify it, though, particularly since the radiant cooling system should sidestep the need for air conditioning for 70 percent of the year. Apple's Dan Whisenhunt has an even more impressive figure: if all works out well, the entire campus will soak of 30 percent less energy than other key buildings in Silicon Valley.
Apple expects that the project will be finished by 2015 or 2016. You can see more photos at the San Jose Mercury News here.
Follow this article's writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.
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