An amusing tidbit this morning highlights a potential flaw in Apple Park’s all-glass design. Bloomberg reports that some employees who might not have been paying 100% attention to where they are walking have accidentally walked into the clear glass internal walls of the pods that make up Apple Park. As a remedy, employees stuck Post-It notes to the walls to make them easier to see. However, these had to be removed because ‘they detracted from the building’s design’.
Whilst there are some markings on these panes, it seems employees haven’t quite adjusted to their new campus. Apple is still in the process of moving employees over to the new campus; at last count, it had permission to move in workers to 5 out of the 12 Apple Park sections.
At Apple Stores, the company is sometimes required to add small but noticeable markers to walls to help the general public avoid accidents. In a few cases, customers have lodged legal complaints against Apple on health and safety grounds for walking into Apple’s trademark glass architectures. Walking into clear glass at the Apple Store continues to be a hazard, warns our own Michael Steeber.
Apple Park features the biggest curved panes of glass in the world. As well as the pieces that make up the exterior ring, each open plan pod of Apple Park makes use of glass extensively, including sliding glass doors.
This is not the first time we’ve heard of some teething problems with the new building. In a report last year, some employees expressed discontent with the open plan arrangement for office space.
It’s hard to tell how much of a big deal this really is. You would expect people to acclimate to their new surroundings in time; the number of people smacking into walls should go down as the building becomes familiar to them. Nevertheless it sure is funny to hear about, especially the mental image of Jony Ive running around telling everyone to take down the Post-It notes …
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