In the summer 2009, Steve Jobs called up Norman Foster, the lead architect at the firm Foster + Partners, and asked for help.
In a video that aired at a joint study session of the Cupertino City Council meeting and the Cupertino Planning Commission in 2013, Foster said Jobs insisted on being included in how the plans came together.
"One of the most memorable, and perhaps vital to the project, was Steve saying, 'Don't think of me as the client, think of me as part of your team,'" Foster said.
The signature ring-shaped building was not the plan in the beginning, nor was the site of the campus always where Apple planned to build.
"It didn't start as a circular building, it really grew into that," Foster told Architectural Record in 2014. "So the idea of one building with a great park was really born out of a very intensive process, with many models and many presentations," Foster said.
Foster also said that initially Apple had planned to build on a different site:
It's interesting how it all evolved. First of all, there was a smaller site. Then, as the project developed, and the Hewlett-Packard site became available, the scale of the project changed.
The main structure has 2.8 million square feet of floor space and a circumference of nearly 1 mile, according to Architectural Record.
The ringed, glass building is designed to encourage collaboration with plenty of open seating areas for employees to meet.
In total, there will be about 83,000 square feet of space dedicated to meeting and breakout spaces in the building, according to Apple's project description.
Curved glass completely encompasses both sides of the building so employees can look into the inner garden or the landscape facing the exterior of the building.
More than 3,000 sheets of the curved glass will wrap around the building when it's finished.
During a recent "60 Minutes" segment, the first piece of the glass was being installed. Jony Ive said it was the largest piece of curved glass in the world.
The corporate auditorium will be 120,000 square feet and will seat 1,000 people.
The auditorium will enable Apple to host more of its events on campus.
"What it allows us to do is take the product launches and special events that we do in San Francisco and beyond and bring it home to Cupertino," Dan Whisenhunt, Apple's senior director of real estate and facilities, said during a Cupertino City Council presentation in 2013.
The auditorium will also feature a lobby and catering facility.
Many of the plants that were selected can adapt to climate change.
"We have selected many drought-tolerant and native plants to minimize the amount of water that is consumed to irrigate these plants," Whisenhunt said during the same presentation.
There will be a total of 7,000 trees on campus.
Apple will transplant the strongest of the trees on the site and augment them with even more resilient species, such as oak, that are well-adapted to the dry climate.
In addition to the oak trees, there will also be a number of fruit trees across the campus, including apple and apricot trees.
The image above shows where each fruit tree will be planted. The purple dots represent plum trees, the orange are apricot, the brown are for olive trees, the red for persimmon trees, pink for cherry, and yellow for apple trees.
The campus will be run on 100% renewable energy, including solar energy and biofuels.
There will be 700,000 square feet of solar panels on campus as well as an on-site low-carbon central plant. During peak periods of demand, energy will be supplemented by purchasing renewable energy from the city's grid.
Apple will also take advantage of the ideal weather in Northern California by using a natural ventilation system. The system will also help Apple meet its goal of achieving a net-zero increase of greenhouse gas emissions.
According to a report from the San Jose Mercury News, more than 157,000 gallons of water will flow to Apple's campus daily. The water will likely be used for landscaping, cooling towers, and plumbing.
There will also be miles of jogging and cycling trails across the 176-acre campus.
During a recent interview with "60 Minutes," Apple CEO Tim Cook wouldn't share exactly how much the company was paying for the new campus. But he did say that it was somewhere near $5 billion.
A lot of parking on site will be underground, which will help provide more space for natural landscaping. But there will also be a highly efficient above-ground parking structure on site. In total, there will be more than 10,980 parking spaces.
Both parking locations will be equipped with electric vehicle-charging stations. About 300 charging stations will be present on campus when it is complete, but Apple left space to add more.
Northwest of the main building, there will be a 100,000-square-foot fitness center that will serve more than 20,000 Apple employees in the area.
According to permits obtained by BuildZoom in December 2014, Apple is spending more than $70 million on the wellness facility.
On the ground level of the main building there will be a 60,000-foot dining facility with movable seating that can accommodate 2,100 people.
There will also be 20,000 square feet of mezzanine space that can accommodate an extra 600 people and 1,750 seats on terraces outside.
Apple is growing its commuting services so that fewer employees will drive to work.
The company is growing its commute alternatives by 20%, which means that more than one-third of the 15,000 employees living in the area can get to work by taking a biofuel company bus or some other form of alternative transportation.
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