In 2011, Apple owned 584 acres of land.
As of this year, and according to the Financial Times, the company now owns about 7,376 acres.
Apple uses its “facilities and land for corporate functions, R&D and data centres.” The latter would include server farms for its various online services, such as iMessage, Apple Music, and the App Store.
It can be easy to think of “the cloud” and the online services we use every day as existing only in some ethereal world up in the sky or in a distant land.
But the reality is that these services have very real physical space requirements. The above chart begins to speak to that.
In 2011, Apple owned 584 acres of land.
As of this year, and according to the Financial Times, the company now owns about 7,376 acres.
Apple uses its “facilities and land for corporate functions, R&D and data centres.” The latter would include server farms for its various online services, such as iMessage, Apple Music, and the App Store.
It can be easy to think of “the cloud” and the online services we use every day as existing only in some ethereal world up in the sky or in a distant land.
But the reality is that these services have very real physical space requirements. The above chart begins to speak to that.
A couple of years ago, an architect friend of mine from Chicago (who was in town for work) told me that when it comes to units of measurement the building industry in Toronto is schizophrenic. She basically said, sometimes you use the international system (metres) and sometimes you use customary units (feet).
And this is absolutely the truth. We are constantly switching back and forth between the two. The drawings that go into the city are in metres and millimetres, but the drawings that get shown to prospective renters and buyers are in feet and inches. We’ll say that the Tall Building Design Guidelines stipulate that towers should be 25 metres apart, but then in the next sentence say that we’re going to need a 24 inch transfer slab.
This kind of measurement bilingualism is so common that I bet some of you have cheat sheets with common conversion factors posted up at your desk. It probably includes things like: 1 square metre = 10.76 square feet.
Over the years though, I have found myself naturally drifting more and more towards metres and millimetres. So much so that when people throw out inches in a meeting, I’ll now sometimes ask them what it is in millimetres: “Wait, how thick does the slab need to be?” A lot of this has to do with the fact that all city planning documents are in metres. So it’s simply more efficient to stick with one system of measurement and avoid constantly converting back and forth.
That said, there are still lots of people who prefer feet and inches (particularly in my industry) and many instances where I default to thinking in customary units. I’m 6 foot 3, not 1905 mm. But, I am ready to go all in with the international system. I think it would make life simpler and more efficient. After all, it is called the international system.
What system of measurement do you think in?
There has always been a strong relationship between architecture and film. Next to actually being there, video is one of the best ways to experience architecture.
And that’s because space is not static. A big part of how we experience space has to do with what it feels like as you move through it.
For example, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for his sprawling horizontal houses and low ceiling heights. In his Fallingwater House (which is stunning), I swear that my head was rubbing on the ceiling in certain rooms (I’m 6'3").
But he did this to purposefully create a feeling of compression. Because then as you exited the room (in this case to go outside onto a terrace) the feeling of openness and expansion is all that more powerful. The contrast creates awareness.
In honor of the cinematic nature of architecture, below is a magnificent video of the Casa del Acantilado (House on the Cliff) by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos. Pay attention to the sliding planes and framed views throughout.
The image shown at the top of this post is from Architizer.
[vimeo 52162380 w=500 h=281]
Casa del Acantilado | House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos on Vimeo.
A couple of years ago, an architect friend of mine from Chicago (who was in town for work) told me that when it comes to units of measurement the building industry in Toronto is schizophrenic. She basically said, sometimes you use the international system (metres) and sometimes you use customary units (feet).
And this is absolutely the truth. We are constantly switching back and forth between the two. The drawings that go into the city are in metres and millimetres, but the drawings that get shown to prospective renters and buyers are in feet and inches. We’ll say that the Tall Building Design Guidelines stipulate that towers should be 25 metres apart, but then in the next sentence say that we’re going to need a 24 inch transfer slab.
This kind of measurement bilingualism is so common that I bet some of you have cheat sheets with common conversion factors posted up at your desk. It probably includes things like: 1 square metre = 10.76 square feet.
Over the years though, I have found myself naturally drifting more and more towards metres and millimetres. So much so that when people throw out inches in a meeting, I’ll now sometimes ask them what it is in millimetres: “Wait, how thick does the slab need to be?” A lot of this has to do with the fact that all city planning documents are in metres. So it’s simply more efficient to stick with one system of measurement and avoid constantly converting back and forth.
That said, there are still lots of people who prefer feet and inches (particularly in my industry) and many instances where I default to thinking in customary units. I’m 6 foot 3, not 1905 mm. But, I am ready to go all in with the international system. I think it would make life simpler and more efficient. After all, it is called the international system.
What system of measurement do you think in?
There has always been a strong relationship between architecture and film. Next to actually being there, video is one of the best ways to experience architecture.
And that’s because space is not static. A big part of how we experience space has to do with what it feels like as you move through it.
For example, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for his sprawling horizontal houses and low ceiling heights. In his Fallingwater House (which is stunning), I swear that my head was rubbing on the ceiling in certain rooms (I’m 6'3").
But he did this to purposefully create a feeling of compression. Because then as you exited the room (in this case to go outside onto a terrace) the feeling of openness and expansion is all that more powerful. The contrast creates awareness.
In honor of the cinematic nature of architecture, below is a magnificent video of the Casa del Acantilado (House on the Cliff) by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos. Pay attention to the sliding planes and framed views throughout.
The image shown at the top of this post is from Architizer.
[vimeo 52162380 w=500 h=281]
Casa del Acantilado | House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos on Vimeo.
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