The news of Apple building a brand new headquarter is known to everyone. Steve Jobs, though a megalomania, was the reason why Apple had such high quality controls. After his death, the quality controls may have slid, but his most demanding tantrum of building a new headquarters is still alive.
This building has been long-delayed. Reuters reported, when speaking to some inside sources from the construction site, many said that some of the design decisions were just absurd.
Plans for the headquarters were put forth by Jobs in 2011 and he expected it to be complete by 2015. Though delayed, this project is bound to break many traditions.
In the report by Reuters, it is mentioned that one of the many reasons for this delay is the 30 page guideline book which describes the special wood to be used in construction.
Many architects, construction companies and project managers have worked on this project. The original contractors, Skanska USA and DPR Construction dropped out of the project for reasons unknown. It is unusual for so many people to disengage from such a huge project.
“With phones, you can build to very, very minute tolerances. You would never design to that level of tolerance on a building. Your doors would jam,” said one of the former architect.
Apple has very specific demands about its construction. Some of these demands do not fit in the Standard Construction Projects. Like, one of the most spectacular feature of the main building is that it uses the world’s largest piece of curved glass. Apple, not the one to be satisfied with even the best, insisted that “no vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass.”
Another one of the absurd specifications says that “all doorways be perfectly flat without a threshold.” Now this is not possible, and one of the construction workers said that he spent months fighting on this issue, but Apple wouldn’t budge. The reason Apple gave for this is equally baffling. They said, “if engineers had to adjust their gait while entering the building, they risked distraction from their work.”
“It’s like a painting that you don’t want to touch,” said Brett Davis, regional director of the District Council 16 union for painters and related crafts.
Apple, we can all agree on this, is currently one of the biggest forces on Earth. They truly deserve an iconic headquarters, but these reports are suggest that the plans may be getting too hard to handle.
All we can hope for is that Apple soon finishes the work, get acclimatised in the Great Glass Doughnut of Cupertino and give us equally mind-boggling gadgets.
Source: Matthew Roberts on YouTube
