Straight on the heals of his appearance at Monday’s WWDC 2011, Steve Jobs appears to be having a very busy week. While developers were willing to fork over $1500 per ticket to see Jobs speak at the Moscone Center in San Francisco one day before, last night’s surprise appearance at Cupertino City Hall was free and open to the public. At 6:45 pm, slipping in just after closed session and skipping to the head of the line of open session, Steve Jobs was called up by Mayor Gilbert Wong to present plans for a new Apple campus which Jobs would later describe as being “a pretty amazing building” that “looks a little like a spaceship has landed.” A row of fifth graders, Global Finalists for a competitive drama program named “Destination Imagination” displaced twenty minutes by the move, didn’t waste a second in protest, erupting instead with whoops and applause along with the rest of the room as Jobs made his way up the aisle from the back where he’d been clasping a hot cup of coffee close to his signature black sweater clad chest. “Sounds like you have some fans” Mayor Wong observed as Jobs reached the stand. “Thank you,” Jobs said addressing the council. “Thank you,” Jobs said again, stretching his head back over his left shoulder to address the audience, while warming to the warmth. We hundred or so in attendance, settled in to witness an unexpected moment of history delivered on an intimate scale.

     Flanked by twin slide projections bearing the apple logo and the words “Innovation Campus”,  Jobs began his presentation by saying “Apple is growing like a weed, and as you know, we’ve always been in Cupertino”. Straight out of the gate, Jobs in his inimitably personal and succinct style, underscored both Apple’s underlying health and certain growth, and his desire for his baby to make its future in the same city that has long been part of his and Apple’s shared past.

    After describing how the growth of the company over the years has required the rental of more and more separate buildings located at a greater and greater radius from the main building at One Infinite Loop, Jobs was ready to get down to the details of Infinite Loop 2.0. He began with an overview of the physical relationship between both old and new campuses and quickly zoomed in for a closer view of the site of the new campus, a 150 acre parcel flanked along one edge by Pruneridge, and comprised of two adjacent parcels of land purchased in separate transactions. The more recently purchased of the two was one with special meaning for Mr Jobs. He described how as a thirteen year old, having idolized Hewitt and Packard of HP, he’d picked up a Palo Alto phone book in the days when all numbers were listed, and put in a call to Bill Hewitt. When Hewitt himself picked up, Jobs asked him for parts for a frequency counter he was building at home, in his garage one presumes, but got something even better, his first summer job, at HP in the division where frequency counters were made. At about the same time, Jobs remembers that HP was buying some land, the same parcel of land that forty years later, HP, needing to downsize, would sell to Apple. 

     Jobs described the current land condition of the two combined parcels as being 80% covered with asphalt today, as compared to 20% coverage in the new scheme achieved in the main by building the bulk of parking beneath the main building. The current tree count of 3,700 would be increased to 6,000, and in a nod to its original reputation as the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” prior to its tech era rebranding as the Silicon Valley, Jobs, whose own Palo Alto home features a front yard apple orchard, has even incorporated plans to restore some of the apricot orchards which used to be on the land.  “We’ve hired one of the senior arborists from Stanford,” he added.

    The plan for the mothership itself is a single giant ring shaped structure designed for 12,000 - 13,000 employees slated for completion in 2015. The nearly weightless execution of the four story design deliciously illustrated in Jobs’ Keynote presentation, depicts a building that in its lightness, almost appears to be hovering. “We wanted the whole place human scale.” Jobs said. “Its got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle,” said he. “It’s a circle, and so it’s curved all the way around,” he continued adding “There’s not a straight piece of glass in this building.” Jobs went on to describe with discernible pride that the glass employed will be the largest pieces ever created, and that Apple’s experience in retail design has led to the technology which will make them possible.  A fitness center and R & D facility were mentioned as additional design elements as was his intention to for the most part, run the building off the grid, and in the ultimate switcheroo, rely on public utilities only in case of emergency. “We’ve hired some great architects to work with, some of the best in the world I think.” Jobs remarked, feeling confident enough in his plans to speculate that the building could prove to be best in class with future architecture students showing up from around the world to take a look at it in person. Summing it up as only Jobs can, he said “Its pretty cool.” I’ll say.

    When I first moved to the Silicon Valley eight years ago, it wasn’t a place for me at all, an idea, yes, but a place? I couldn’t see it, or when I did, I pictured dry hills to the east, and green hills to the west bordering the edges of a vast motherboard studded plain with bundled units of zeros and ones hurdling through the upper reaches of the atmosphere above it. What I could not imagine were buildings—buildings filled with people, buildings surrounded by parking lots, buildings punctuated by trees. And yet, when I finally arrived, that’s exactly what was here—buildings, lots and lots of buildings. Boring buildings for the most part. Rectangular buildings. Low rise buildings. Buildings scattered hither and thither like so much confetti after a party. Buildings that certainly didn’t live up to the revolutionary and untethered ideas that came from within their walls. I found it hard to reconcile that a valley so rich with technological innovation, had given birth to such mind numbing architecture. Apparently, Steve Jobs has not only been brewing over this same dilemma, but is well on track to lay down not just a solution, but a game changing gauntlet. The man who just one day before introduced the most untouchably nebulus innovation yet, iCloud, is ready to simultaneously plant a flag in the earth and build a building. It promises to be a real beauty and to provide a full circle moment if ever there was one for the ultimate home town boy makes good, Steve Jobs, as well as lasting continuity for Apple.