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'I walked into a glass door': Emergency calls reveal string of accidents at Apple's $5bn HQ
Apple employees have been injuring themselves by accidentally walking into the glass walls of the company's brand new $5 billion headquarters.
Apple Park, which has been nicknamed the "Spaceship campus", was designed by Steve Jobs before he died in 2011 and was brought to life by British architect Norman Foster.
Apple employees were given the all clear to start moving into the circular building on January 2. On that day two people were injured, followed by a third a day later.
Mr Jobs wanted to give workers and visitors to the building the impression of being immersed in their natural surroundings, with the walls to appear invisible behind the surrounding 4,600 trees planted specifically for that purpose. The 45ft glass panels are shaped so that water runs off and does not smear and each panel has been placed so that they do not reflect any metal pipes, making them difficult to spot.
The company has now been forced place rectangular signs around the building after its optical illusion design caused several employees to walk straight into the glass.
Three people suffered injuries after mistaking the glass panels for walkways in January, 911 calls obtained by a local newspaper have revealed.
One incident involved an unnamed 23-year-old employee who bumped his head after misjudging the door, the phone transcript detailed.
Apple employee: "Um, I walked into a glass door on the first floor of Apple Park when I was trying to go outside, which was very silly."
Medical call assistant: "You keep breaking up. You walked through a glass door?"
Employee: "I didn’t walk through a glass door. I walked into a glass door."
Hours later, a worker in his late twenties also walked into a glass wall, leaving him disorientated and bleeding from a cut above his eye.
The following day, a male employee in his fifties was left needing stitches after walking straight into a pane of glass.
The technology giant is understood to have been warned by contractors that a building made almost entirely out of glass could pose health and safety risks, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The idea came from Steve Jobs, who expected the new headquarters to be complete by 2015. But the extravagance of the designs and meticulous attention to detail push back the launch date. There were reported teething problems with the initial contractor, who left shortly after work began. Mr Jobs initially wanted the entire building to be made of glass, but had to settle for metal canopies when it proved impossible.