JEDDAH: Apple’s iconic new $5 billion headquarters has been capped off with the world’s ‘largest freestanding carbon-fiber roof’ that was constructed in Dubai.
Weighing 80 tons, the roof is made up of 44 identical radial panels, each about 70 feet long and 11 feet wide.
The panels were shipped from Dubai Investment Park-based Premier Composite Technologies, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the site in Cupertino, California.
Apple’s mega campus was the brainchildren of the company’s co-founder Steve Jobs — it was one of the last projects he commissioned before he died in 2011.
Nearing completion, the vast circular building of glass covers 175 acres. Jobs said he wanted the building to “foster creativity and collaboration.”
Cupertino’s Mayor, Savita Vaidhyanathan, was quoted by the New York Times on Tuesday as saying: “I saw the underground 1,000-seat theater and the carbon-fiber roof.
“The roof was made in Dubai, and it was transported and assembled here. I love that it’s here and that I can brag about it.”
Once complete the building will be powered entirely by renewable energy, 75 percent of which will be generated by a rooftop solar installation.
