The Designer Of The iMac Presents: iBuilding

Apple’s chief designer, Jony Ive, has scaled up his talents from palm-sized to town-sized to conceptualize Apple’s new campus in Cupertino. In her extensive profile of both designer and the building, Christina Passariello explains how Ive approached working at the architectural scale with the same methodology as he does, say, an iPhone: prototyping and focusing on details.

After Ive prototyped his image for Apple HQ, renowned architects Foster+Partners were brought in to help realize the vision. The overall aesthetic of the resulting plan is not undramatic: a spaceship-like ring forms the main building, adjacent to a giant glass auditorium and huge green areas for Apple’s famous after-work festivities.

Ive began working on the project with his friend and partner, the late Steve Jobs, years ago. He included references to Jobs in the design, like trees he would have enjoyed—while trying to create a functional place for Apple’s thousands of employees to gather.

“Some principles were a given, such as the belief that natural light and fresh air make workers happier and more productive”; others were debated about, such as whether the shape of the building when seen from the air should resemble “a sort of giant fidget spinner”. But the ring-shape the designer and architects settled upon is a functional and modular approach: it allows them to treat each of its segments (nicknamed “pods”) individually, designing one basic pod in great detail and then repeating it around the circle.

Ive believes that product design and architecture are much more similar than they seem, and many agree that his design sensibility could be extended even further. Norman Foster of Foster+Partners reveres Ive, calling him the Dieter Rams of his generation. So what will Ive apply the Apple aesthetic to next?