New model of Apple’s proposed spaceship campus reveals new details about the building

New photos from the San Jose Mercury News today reveal additional details about Apple’s new campus, slated to be completed sometime in either 2015 or 2016. A scale model of the planned building was shown to The Mercury News by Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, located at an office on the 175-acre site of Apple’s planned campus. According to Oppenheimer:

 “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.”

As Apple prepares for a final vote before the Cupertino City Council on the development of the campus on October 15th, final plans and details are coming together and are mostly in place.

While past drawings and renderings of the project, designed by Foster + Partners have been primarily unfinished concepts, this model depicts with accuracy what the finished buildings and grounds will likely look like when they open. From the photos, we can see not only the main, circular campus, covered with curved glass and polished concrete, which Apple claims is designed the way it is for “walkability”, but parking structures and various outbuildings covered with solar panels.

Of course, with the level of detail and extravagance the buildings depict, it’s no surprise estimates peg the project as being $2 billion over budget. One of Apple’s goals with the new campus, as outlined by Steve Jobs in his last public appearance, was to make the buildings extremely energy efficient. The buildings are naturally ventilated, and use radiant cooling, to avoid the need for air condition for 70% of the year. Apple’s Dan Whisenhunt claims that the entire campus will use 30% less energy than other buildings in Silicon Valley.

Other features of the new campus include a detached fitness and wellness center, underground parking lots, a separate theater for meetings and presentations, and an R&D building. Of course, the entire center courtyard of the main “spaceship” as well as the rest of the campus is filled with trees hand-selected by Apple. You can view a full gallery of photos at the Mercury News.