For example, Alibaba, with a rage of 65.438+0 billion, built a headquarters of 6.5438+0.8 million square meters, while Amazon, the foreign e-commerce boss, even exaggerated and directly arranged more than 300 kinds of endangered plants.
However, at the end of the "involution" of all headquarters buildings, it must be Apple's new headquarters, Apple Park. Not only was it designed by Mr. Joe himself, but he also gave a dead order to build it into the best office building in the world.
In order to achieve the goal, Apple forced back two contractors in four years. It took the contractor a year and a half to rework just installing the door handle, because it was not allowed to connect with screws. It must be integrated with the door frame, and it feels like the aluminum texture of MacBook Pro.
For this building, Apple bought all the green trees in two American states, leaving no trees for other enterprises to buy. The most outrageous thing is that Apple can't leave any fingerprints when it finally hands over the work, so everyone has to work with gloves, and Ji Guo Jun doesn't know why.
In the end, the construction of Apple Park took eight years and the cost was as high as 5 billion US dollars (about 33 billion yuan). So far, the cost of this office building is the highest in the world.
Apple Park is a circular building with a big yard in the middle, which looks like a UFO. This building not only looks mysterious, but also makes people stay away from it. After the completion of 20 17, non-Apple personnel are not allowed to approach.
In 20 19, Apple Park held an open day. Invitees can be invited to visit, but they can only take photos outside, and the internal space or the interior of the building is completely forbidden.
In other words, what Apple looks like inside depends only on the speculation of some media and the description of the invitees, and outsiders have no chance to "see the truth" at all!
Although we can't wait to be invited to visit in person, now we can watch it on the screen! Recently, the authoritative American design and life magazine "Wallpaper" disclosed the internal scene of Apple Park for the first time, showing the daily work and life details of many employees.
I have to say that as the "bearer" of technology, Apple's vision and concept are really different. It is not so much an office building as a park.
Enjoy the "eyeball spa" at any time.
Apple is headquartered in Cupertino and designed by Foster Architects. There are 12000 Apple employees here. In the center of the circular building is a big courtyard. It is said that this design is to make the lighting in the office more adequate, so that everyone can enjoy the same "eyeball spa" after work.
Indeed, the overall office environment looks very bright. There are 9000 trees planted in it, and the greening is in place. Just walk into a conference room and you will see layers of green trees outside the window.
Then Apple Park's studio door was open to everyone, and members of the Apple design team gathered near the central library to discuss Apple Watch.
Evans Hankey (vice president of industrial design at Apple) and Alan Dye (vice president of human-computer interface design) are responsible for guiding the work of this department.
The purpose of designing Apple Park is to design sketches, models and prototypes within the company, thus making the workflow smoother.
There is no clear division of seats here. For example, industrial designers can sit next to font designers, and they can also work closely with sound designers, motion graphics experts, color designers and soft material object experts. "
Judging from the overall working atmosphere, Apple has been implementing the concept of "humanization", which may be one of the reasons for making products more detailed.
But then again, no matter how detailed the office environment is, it is basically the same. I believe everyone, like Ji, is more curious about the process behind the birth of Apple products.
The most demanding R&D personnel.
Every time Apple explores new products, such as Apple Watch and AirPods, it seems to be easy to release. In fact, the workload behind the scenes is quite amazing.
In order to ensure that the strap of Apple Watch is more comfortable, Apple has set up a fitness department and recruited material experts to ensure that the strap can be as comfortable as shoes.
In the studio, a modeler is matching the crown of a digital watch with an Apple watch.
It is more complicated when building AirPods. Apple's human factors team brings together experts in ergonomics, cognition and behavioral psychology. About ten years ago, when Air Pods began to develop, human factor researcher Kristi Bauerly was studying the "crazy and complicated" human ear.
She said: "We have scanned thousands of human ears, and I think we have built the world's largest ear bank before finding a suitable' design space'. Finally, we chose the earplug design focusing on the outer ear and the acoustic design of the inner ear. "
There are also audio designers who create customized sounds in the sound lab of the design studio.
In addition to new products, Apple's flagship product iPhone research and development is also nuanced.
In the R&D department, a staff member is trying to assemble the camera module of iPhone 13 Pro into other models. They need to build multiple models to study every detail.
Here, you can also see the internal view of the iPhone 13 Pro prototype.
In another studio, members of the industrial design team discuss colors next to the new iMac, and the atmosphere looks very harmonious.
Although each R&D personnel has their own emphasis in a single field, industrial design needs the ability to cross professional fields. Some members are not only good at 3D design, but also good at writing code, but the most important quality among all skills and talents is still curiosity.
In fact, in addition to all kinds of well-known electronic products, systematic text typesetting design, which is most easily overlooked by everyone, has also paid a lot of effort.
Font design of "careful calculation"
In the eyes of many people, font design seems to be an obscure science. Lance Wilson is one of the typesetting experts of Apple's design team and one of the developers of Apple's San Francisco fonts.
Wilson said that using SF Symbols software, developers can have more than 654.38+ million icon combinations, and they can dynamically adjust font size, word weight and icon orientation, all in order to "create coherence between hardware and software".
In 20 19, they released system serif font New York, which can still be used for free by 30 million developers of Apple, and all of them have built-in font design specifications, which ensures the visual unity of the brand.
Wilson and his team also cooperated with Hermes to develop upgraded fonts.
To say the most classic, it belongs to the cursive font they created for the new iMac in 20021,inspired by Susan Kare's classic cursive "hello" pattern for the first Macintosh. This spline font has complete connectivity, and the connection is as natural as handwriting.
Today, font design has long been an indispensable part of Apple's design ecosystem.
For yourself and for everyone.
In Apple Park, every member of the Apple design team is actively studying and looking for solutions to every problem.
From working with disabled people to ensure that people with impaired vision or hearing can easily operate the iPhone, to developing emoji systems that adapt to different forms of expression and self-identity, the team has been continuously participating and making progress.
And the field of research and development is gradually expanding. For example, the space sensing system equipped with Air Tag includes the development of a set of motion capture lenses, which can track the equipment according to the space and smoothly run in with other equipment.
There is also a virtual "handshake" between iPhone and Home Pod Mini. When you use iPhone to approach Home Pod, Home Pod can also play streaming music seamlessly.
Working in a technology giant like Apple has not only made achievements in the creative process, but also implemented the design concept of "humanization", not only for myself, but also for everyone.