Enjoy the great outdoors! Samsung plans its new building just ten miles from Apple
Just as Apple and Samsung are going head-to-head in the battle over tablet computers and mobile phones, so the Big Two are slugging out over their new offices .
Samsung building: Outdoor working
Apples's plans for a "circular spaceship" at Cupertino have been well publicised ; Samsung's plans for a cube-like building at San Jose - just over 10 miles away have drawn less attention . They are pretty impressive too although on a smaller scale.
The 680,000-square-foot building, 170 feet tall, with will have open, plant-filled floors and extensive greenery around the campus.It will be more than three times the size of the company offices now on the site . Planning Director Joe Horwedel said the new building will have 10 floors of office space with two floors that allow employees to be" outdoors within the building."
"It's kind of an interesting concept that we haven't seen before," Horwedel told the San Jose Mercury New . "It allows workers to take advantage of the great weather we have here most of the year.
" It allows them to do that both at the ground level as well as spaces up in the building. You not only get open air, but great views. We haven't seen anybody do something like that."
Samsung's expansion is part of a deal between the company, city and state calling for substantial subsidies. The state will provide unspecified reimbursement for employee training plus a research and development tax credit. Samsung expects to begin demolition and construction later this year.
They plan to begin moving the 330 employees there now in April "to another close by location." They expect to move back in 2015. Goodhart would not say how many employees the expanded facility will house.
Apple will have 12,000 at its spaceship now expected to open in 2016.
The Samsung building will have an eight-story parking garage for up to 1,545 cars with a solar panel array on the roof. The campus will include a star-shaped cafeteria with vegetated roof, rain gardens, a lawn garden and courts for basketball and badminton.
"It's going to be eco-friendly," Goodhart said. "We plan to have something like a small park on the campus, quite different from what's there now."