Some Apple workers hate the open-plan layout of their new Foster + Partners-designed campus so much they might quit, according to reports circulating around Silicon Valley.
A $5 billion (£3.8 billion) development eight years in the making, the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California began welcoming the tech giant's employees in April. The remaining employees expected to work in the building are due to move in later this year.
However, John Gruber, who runs the Apple-focused site Daring Fireball, said in his podcast on Sunday that he has received a number of complaints via email from Apple employees reluctant to accept the working conditions of the campus.
Gruber said the criticism centred on Apple Park's open floor plan, which is based around "pods" – huge open workspaces with shared tables. It has apparently rankled some of the company's engineers and developers, who are used to private offices or cubicles.
"Judging from the private feedback I've gotten from some Apple employees, I'm 100 per cent certain there's going to be some degree of attrition based on the open floor plans, where good employees are going to choose to leave because they don't want to work there," Gruber said.
There are 80 pods on each of the four floors of Apple Park. Furnished with custom pieces by Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, the soundproof spaces feature huge collaboration tables made from European white oak.
Gruber said that Apple's internal critics included high-level employees, and related a third-hand, unconfirmed account of Apple's senior vice-president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji refusing to work in the new facility.
