Anticipation was higher than usual – and it always runs to feverish – when the press and other interested parties made their way to California’s Silicon Valley last September for the latest Apple keynote presentation. The most titanic of the valley’s tech titans was due to unveil its most significant update to the iPhone since its launch, ten years previous. In that time the iPhone has upended industries and transformed how we do just about everything. The update was a big deal. But most of the golden ticket holders were as excited about where they were as what they were about to see.

This was the first up-close mass sighting of the most talked-about new building in the world, a $5bn, or so it’s said, Foster + Partners-designed loop of glass, aluminium, limestone and concrete and Apple’s new HQ. Guests worked their way up an artificial hill, part of 175 acres of undulating new landscape where once was dead-flat parking facility and dull corporate sheds, most of it owned by Hewlett-Packard. This engineered topography, a fantasy of California, gentle and abundant, was borne of the earth removed to make way for the new building’s earthquake-proof foundations, and has been planted with 9,000 trees, including cherry, apricot, apple, persimmon and pear.

The office space in The Ring is, within limits, configurable. Teams can choose if they want to work in individual offices or open spaces. Each floor in each segment has a central area with an oak meeting table and glass whiteboards that open to reveal huge TV screens. More random interaction is intended and engineered to happen in the circling corridor and on the staircases (there are 32 in the building and they are a particular point of pride for Ive and the Foster + Partners architects). Each segment also houses a central atrium. The true hub of the building, though, is the café, with seating for 4,000 and one the biggest kitchens in the US. At the outside edge two 85 x 54ft moveable glass doors are designed to open the space up to the Bay Area’s natural benevolence.

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