Apple's 'spaceship' campus architect dishes details

Apple plans to turn a "sea of asphalt" into a green space.

(Credit: Apple) Stanford University's campus has a large central quad full of plants, flowers, trees, and pedestrian walkways -- this was Apple late co-founder Steve Jobs' vision for the design of the company's upcoming futuristic spaceship-like campus.
Architecture firm Foster + Partners is heading the project -- which is slated to be done in 2016 -- and the firm's founder, Norman Foster, recently spoke to Architectural Record about the thinking behind the new headquarters.
Jobs laid out plans for the campus in 2011. The facility is expected to have four stories and span a whopping 2.8 million square feet. Apple said in 2011 that it hopes to have 12,000 people on the campus -- up from about 2,800 in its current headquarters.
Before Apple took over the land, Hewlett-Packard had offices there. According to Foster, "the Apple building will occupy the site much more tightly than what was there." This means there will be far more open space for plants and trees. In fact, Apple has said that the headquarters will be 80 percent landscape with more than 7,000 trees.