Apple Campus Architect Rumored To Be Norman Foster

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Mexican newspaper El Economista is reporting that famed British architect Norman Foster has been tapped by Apple to design their new campus on the land they purchased from HP in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino. Apple recently purchased some 98 acres from the PC maker, making them the biggest landholder in Cupertino.

Apple has stated for the last few years that they’ve been outgrowing their old headquarters on 1 Infinite Loop. In 2006, they purchased some land from HP, but have completely bought out HP of Cupertino with this latest purchase (for the record, HP is consolidating their offices by moving more personnel to their HQ in Palo Alto). Apple was already the biggest taxpayer in Cupertino, and now, as mentioned, they’re the biggest landholder.

Apple’s all about style, of course, and so they’ve gotten a top stylish designer to help them out. Norman Foster, English architect who’s designed such buildings as the Hearst Tower in New York City or the New Wembley Stadium in London, is noted for his stylish, clean designs. Dare we say, he’s the Johnny Ive of buildings?

According to El Economista, the new campus on the HP lot and the old Infinite Loop campus will be joined together by an underground tunnel (I’m slightly suspect of that, considering the cost, time and wherewithal to build an underground tunnel in an already developed area, but we’ll let it slide). Foster’s design for the new Apple Campus is said to be inspried by his designs for ‘Masdar City’ – a master planned city currently being built in Abu Dhabi.

The term ‘Apple City’ is also being thrown around in relation to all three Apple campuses in Cupertino. Whether or not that’s an official term endorsed by Apple or something that the El Economista writers dreamed up themselves remains to be seen. While it may seem kinda gawdy, it does have precedent in consumer electronics. The office park hosting Samsung’s corporate offices in Seoul is known as “Samsung Town” and the area in Tokyo hosting Sony’s office complex is known as “Sony City” or “Sony World”. Are Jobs & Co. going to import some Eastern branding conventions to Cupertino?

(Image Credit: Wikimedia.org/Diliff)