Apple 'spaceship' campus gets official name and launch date

Abstract image showing the Apple logo super-imposed over a park

Apple's brand new campus - colloquially dubbed 'the spaceship', due to its neo-futurist design - will officially open in April, the company has announced.

The facility will officially be named Apple Park, and will house more than 12,000 employees along with several research and development labs. It will also contain a 1,000-seat auditorium, which will replace the 'Town Hall' space that the company currently uses to host major events.

The new event space will be named the Steve Jobs Theater in honour of the company's late co-founder. The new headquarters was one of the last projects that Jobs worked on before his death from pancreatic cancer in 2011.

"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 Apple CEO Tim Cook. "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."

The process of moving the company's employees into the new complex is expected to take around six months, with construction continuing in certain areas for the duration of the summer.

Apple Park will occupy 175 acres in California's Santa Clara Valley, around 2 miles from the company's current headquarters at Infinite Loop in Cupertino. The central building has an area of 2.8 million square feet and the company claims it is made of the world's largest curved glass panels.

As well as Apple's corporate facilities, the park will also contain a visitor's center for members of the public, including a cafe and an Apple Store. There will also be a 100,000-square foot employee gym and two miles of running paths.

"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 characterise 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."

28/09/2016: Apple switches London HQ to Battersea Power Station

Apple is establishing a new London headquarters in Battersea Power Station, the company has announced.

The company's new offices will house around 1,400 employees consolidated from eight separate locations around the capital, moving into the space in 2021.

The new offices will occupy roughly 500,000 square feet over five floors of the newly-redeveloped building's central Boiler House. The iconic landmark lay derelict for decades, but has recently undergone an extensive and costly renovation project to redevelop the structure.

"We are delighted Apple chose to make this their home in 2021," said Rob Tincknell, head of the Battersea Power Station Development Company.

"It has always been our clear objective to create one of London's most thriving new communities and this commitment from Apple will undoubtedly help us achieve this goal."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan also expressed his support for the project, calling it a "sign that London is open to the biggest brands in the world and the leading city for trade and investment".

Apple expressed its excitement about the move in a statement to the London Evening Standard, calling Battersea Power Station "a magnificent new development at one of the city's best-known landmarks".

"This is a great opportunity to have our entire team working and collaborating in one location," a spokesperson said, "while supporting the renovation of a neighbourhood rich with history."

However, while the new facility will act as the company's London base of operations, Apple's main European headquarters will still be located in County Cork, Ireland, but Apple's tax payments to Ireland have courted controversy in recent months, with Apple ordered to pay the government 13 billion.

Adam Shepherd

Adam Shepherd has been a technology journalist since 2015, covering everything from cloud storage and security, to smartphones and servers. Over the course of his career, he’s seen the spread of 5G, the growing ubiquity of wireless devices, and the start of the connected revolution. He’s also been to more trade shows and technology conferences than he cares to count.

Adam is an avid follower of the latest hardware innovations, and he is never happier than when tinkering with complex network configurations, or exploring a new Linux distro. He was also previously a co-host on the ITPro Podcast, where he was often found ranting about his love of strange gadgets, his disdain for Windows Mobile, and everything in between.

You can find Adam tweeting about enterprise technology (or more often bad jokes) @AdamShepherUK.