Apple's futuristic Campus 2 to feature custom-built 18-foot tables for collaboration
So far, we've heard a lot about Apple's super-futuristic (and soon-to-launch) Campus 2, ranging from its spaceship-like design to its huge auditorium and impressive grounds. The latest Campus 2 news concerns Apple's use of custom-designed 18-foot tables, and how these are expected to facilitate collaboration inside the mothership.
I have to admit, when I first saw this news I read 18-foot tablets, instead of tables. But the tables are nevertheless impressive! As MacRumors explains, Campus 2 has indeed been designed “from the ground up” in order to meet Apple's precise and exacting needs, and part of these seems to concern the use of large tables that should make it easier for colleagues to work together.
The move should make it easier for colleagues to work together.
More specifically, Apple is reportedly having some 500 “white oak tables” created for Campus 2, with each one measuring 18-feet long, four-feet wide, and weighing 660 pounds. These are coming from a Dutch company and are fashioned from a single piece of wood; the finished product has rounded edges, which MacRumors notes are “skateboard-like” and feature a “seamless surface.”
The news originated from Design Milk, a design-focused website that was given access to some of the details. In its original post, the publication explains:
The closest approximation that popped into my head was an enormous naked wood skate deck designed for a colossus Jony Ive. And if the length of all 500 tables inside Apple Campus 2 were combined, it would roughly equal the distance of the National Mall in Washington, DC.
These extra large Pod Island Tables by Arco are constructed from continuous sheets of solid Spesshart white oak sourced from the fairytale forests of Germany. There are no visible seams because of the company's innovative manufacturing technique, which essentially peels away continuous single thin sheets of wood, which is then layered into a table top.
Collaborative pods
The destination for these large tables, the publication adds, is one of a large number of “collaborative pods,” which will be located on each floor of the main ring-shaped building of Campus 2. The arrangement of these pods is designed to facilitate so-called “accidental mingling” between employees, and this borrows from a similar concept that former Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs utilized at Pixar.
Apple plans to have Campus 2 done and dusted by the end of 2016, and employees are moving into the new building from early 2017 onwards. Campus 2 is shaping up to be the most impressive thing Apple has ever built. I can’t wait to hear more.