Apple Park, the $5 billion Apple headquarters building in Cupertino, Calif., is as futuristic an office as you are likely to find. In order to create a sleek, futuristic aesthetic for employees, the complex’s design incorporated an extensive amount of glass walls and partitions. While the glass helps to create an open, airy floor plan, there appears to be an unintended consequence to all of the transparent walls.
As CBS San Francisco reports, employees are having difficulty seeing the glass walls and, as a result, are running into them, often times injuring themselves. That’s right, while some new buildings such as U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota have had issues with their extensive use of glass proving harmful to bird populations, Apple’s new campus is proving just as difficult to navigate for its human employees.
On more than one occasion calls have been placed to 911 describing employees that are bleeding or disoriented after colliding with the partitions. The current solution for the deleterious walls has been to stick small white stickers on the glass panes to help make them more visible. Whether a more permanent solution will be found remains to be seen.
Related Stories
Mass Timber | May 3, 2023
Gensler-designed mid-rise will be Houston’s first mass timber commercial office building
A Houston project plans to achieve two firsts: the city’s first mass timber commercial office project, and the state of Texas’s first commercial office building targeting net zero energy operational carbon upon completion next year. Framework @ Block 10 is owned and managed by Hicks Ventures, a Houston-based development company.
Office Buildings | May 1, 2023
Office building owners face potential legal liabilities when adding new workplace amenities
Many landlords in the war for tenants have turned to offering new amenities such as conference room services, fitness centers with nutritionists, and high-end food and beverage offerings. To provide new services, landlords often engage with third-party vendors, which can present thorny legal liability.
Design Innovation Report | Apr 27, 2023
BD+C's 2023 Design Innovation Report
Building Design+Construction’s Design Innovation Report presents projects, spaces, and initiatives—and the AEC professionals behind them—that push the boundaries of building design. This year, we feature four novel projects and one building science innovation.
Office Buildings | Apr 24, 2023
Smart savings: Commissioning for the hybrid workplace
Joe Crowe, Senior Mechanical Engineer, Gresham Smith, shares smart savings tips for facility managers and building owners of hybrid workplaces.
Green | Apr 21, 2023
Top 10 green building projects for 2023
The Harvard University Science and Engineering Complex in Boston and the Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis are among the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards honorees for 2023.
Design Innovation Report | Apr 19, 2023
Reinforced concrete walls and fins stiffen and shade the National Bank of Kuwait skyscraper
When the National Bank of Kuwait first conceived its new headquarters more than a decade ago, it wanted to make a statement about passive design with a soaring tower that could withstand the extreme heat of Kuwait City, the country’s desert capital.
Design Innovation Report | Apr 19, 2023
Meet The Hithe: A demountable building for transient startups
The Hithe, near London, is designed to be demountable and reusable. The 2,153-sf building provides 12 units of business incubator workspace for startups.
Green | Apr 18, 2023
USGBC and IWBI unveil streamlined certification pathway for LEED and WELL green building programs
The U.S. Green Building Council, Green Business Certification Inc., and the International WELL Building Institute released a streamlined process for projects pursuing certifications for the LEED green building rating system and the WELL Building Standard. The new protocol simplifies documentation for projects that are pursuing both certifications at the same time or that have already earned one certification and are looking to add the other.
Office Buildings | Apr 13, 2023
L.A. headquarters for startup Califia Farms incorporates post-pandemic hybrid workplace design concepts
The new Los Angeles headquarters for fast-growing Califia Farms, a brand of dairy alternative products, was designed by SLAM with the post-Covid hybrid work environment in mind. Located in Maxwell Coffee House, a historic production facility built in 1924 that has become a vibrant mixed-use complex, the office features a café bordered by generous meeting rooms.
Market Data | Apr 11, 2023
Construction crane count reaches all-time high in Q1 2023
Toronto, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Denver top the list of U.S/Canadian cities with the greatest number of fixed cranes on construction sites, according to Rider Levett Bucknall's RLB Crane Index for North America for Q1 2023.
