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Apple’s spaceship campus officially named Apple Park; auditorium is Steve Jobs Theater [Gallery]

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Apple has today announced the official name of its spaceship campus: Apple Park. The new headquarters complex had previously been referred to as Apple Campus 2. The 1,000-seat auditorium will be named the Steve Jobs Theater.

The company also revealed the timeline for employees to move into the campus, as well as sharing a few high-resolution images (below) …

Apple Park, the company’s new 175-acre campus, will be ready for employees to begin occupying in April. The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.

Apple began hiring staff for the campus back in November.

Apple noted that Steve Jobs would have turned 62 this Friday.

To honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world, the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater. Opening later this year, the entrance to the 1,000-seat auditorium is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 165 feet in diameter, supporting a metallic carbon-fiber roof. The Steve Jobs Theater is situated atop a hill — one of the highest points within Apple Park — overlooking meadows and the main building.

Quotes on the Apple Park from Tim Cook, Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs make multiple references to Steve.

“Steve’s vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We’ve achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy.”

“Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness. It was his favorite setting for thought. Apple Park captures his spirit uncannily well,” said Laurene Powell Jobs. “He would have flourished, as the people of Apple surely will, on this luminously designed campus.”

“Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments. We have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate and work together. We have been extremely fortunate to be able to work closely, over many years, with the remarkable architectural practice Foster + Partners.”

Apple noted that the campus will include a visitors center with an Apple Store and cafe open to the public. The company also noted that it will set a number of records.

The campus’ ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass […] With 17 megawatts of rooftop solar, Apple Park will run one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world. It is also the site of the world’s largest naturally ventilated building, projected to require no heating or air conditioning for nine months of the year.

We’ve of course been closely following construction progress in a regular series of drone videos. We also recently learned about some of the interior details, including polished concrete ceilings, iPhone-like elevator buttons and flat doorways. Apple previously shared a number of photos of the interior.

Click on any of the images below to view full-size. The theater image appears to be a render while the other two look like actual photos.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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