Tech City Tiers: Tech Campuses

The Space Race

With the emphasis firmly placed on health and wellbeing, campus tech hubs offer an alternative to city-based locations.

Tech campuses have taken on a fresh relevance in a time of social distancing and newfound focus on health and wellbeing. While tech talent has favoured the urban in recent years, the pandemic has led some to reassess the benefits of a city environment.

Suburban and campus tech hubs can offer more open space and easier access to outdoor pursuits than urban destinations.

Such campuses are many and varied in their form and can enable activities (particularly in the case of life sciences) that may not be possible in a densely populated urban setting. Often developing around a single anchor organisation, many have grown up to become places in their own right.

These are five campus examples with wellness at their core. City microcosms, they embrace principles of city planning in their design and operation, with a view to foster chance interactions, improve productivity and wellbeing.

1. Redmond, Washington State, US

Microsoft’s 8 million sqft global HQ, home to 37,000 employees, is at the heart of the Redmond tech scene which also counts Nintendo and Space X as occupiers. A town of 70,000 people and part of the Seattle metropolitan area, Redmond is a cyclists’ paradise, hosting numerous cycle trails and the state’s only velodrome. Well-located for access to outdoor activities, hiking, climbing, and wineries are on the city’s doorstep.

2. Sophia Antipolis, Valbonne, France

Located north of Antibes on the Côte d’Azur, Sophia Antipolis is an internationally renowned science and technology park that employs some 36,000 people. One of Europe’s first technology campuses when it was developed in the 1970s, it has succeeded in creating a tech and scientific location in a previously untested location. Two thirds of the site is greenspace, and its location means it is within two hours of skiing in the Alps and under half an hour from the region’s beaches.

3. Xixi Campus, Hangzhou, China

Alibaba’s Xixi campus is home to 22,000 employees, and located to the west of Hangzhou, close to West Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage site of significant Chinese cultural importance. The campus is organised and linked in order to create a connected and productive community with a variety of workspaces, open spaces and health facilities. It is a testbed for many of the company’s technologies: autonomous vehicles operate deliveries, cameras enable auto-payment of food in the cafeterias.

4. Apple Park, Cupertino, California, US

Apple Park is a 2.8 million sqft, four storey circular building, home to more than 12,000 employees. Some 80% of the site is given over to greenspace of indigenous planting. LEED certified, there are jogging and cycling trails across the 175 acre campus. Located in Cupertino, city law dictated extensive car parking provision and 11,000 spaces were provided. Combined, these take up a greater area than the office space itself. State and county parks, famous for their giant redwood trees, are on Cupertino’s doorstep.

5. Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Oxfordshire, UK

Harwell is located in the Oxford-Cambridge innovation arc, a region with the UK’s greatest growth potential outside of London. Its countryside situation allows easy access to the Chilterns. The campus extends to 700 acres, and is home to more than 200 organisations, 90 of these are space organisations making it the largest space cluster in Europe. Large-scale specialist R&D facilities, such as the Diamond Light Source Synchrotron, are made possible by spacious setting.