Steve on Image ProcessingJune 2nd, 2010Goodbye Apple Hill 1!Today offered more excitement than usual at MathWorks headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts. We got to destroy a building! Well, we got a good start on it anyway. Let me back this story up a bit. In 1998 MathWorks had outgrown its office building in Natick. We wanted to stay in town, so we constructed a new building in a nearby office park called Apple Hill. (Even though it was the fourth building in the office park, the new building was called Apple Hill 3. Go figure.) We moved into the new building in 1999. Over the next ten years, fueled by the global success of MATLAB, Simulink, and the whole product family, the company continued to grow. After eventually expanding into all four Apple Hill buildings, we finally ran out of space again. As before, we really wanted to stay in Natick. But with 1500 people working in the Natick headquarters, we had to get really creative about space. After a couple of years of working out the details, and with a lot of help from the town of Natick and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have finally started on the new plan—we are bringing down the smallest of the four buildings in order to replace it with a much larger structure. Our reconfigured headquarters campus will accommodate our anticipated company expansion and growth for years to come. Today we held a ceremony and celebration to mark the destruction of Apple Hill 1 and to launch the new construction project. Here's Apple Hill 1, apparently indifferent to its fate.
MATLAB Central bloggers Doug Hull and Loren Shure showed up early for the festivities, as did Ned Gulley, one of the driving forces behind all the community efforts on MATLAB Central.
(Ned was clearly trying to bring down Apple Hill 1 with the sheer force of his squinty, laser-eyed gaze. Or maybe he just didn't want me to take his picture.) Here's the best view I could get of the MathWorks headquarters staff who turned out to watch.
Speakers at the ceremony included MathWorks President and Co-Founder Jack Little, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing & Economic Development Gregory Bialecki, State Senator Karen E. Spilka, and State Representative David Paul Linsky.
A ballista (catapult) was set up on the construction site to take shots at the building. I was very lucky to catch in one of my pictures the first ice block launched toward Apple Hill 1. As you can see on the right, however, the building seemed unfazed.
That was OK, though. We had a backup plan.
MathWorker Mike Labrecque got to "drive" the claw. Well done, Mike! Finally, no true MathWorks event would be complete without food. Today it was ice cream:
As far as I'm concerned, any day that includes an ice cream cookie sandwich is a fine day indeed! 2 Responses to “Goodbye Apple Hill 1!” |
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These postings are the author's and don't necessarily represent the opinions of The MathWorks. |
Running heavy equipment & ice cream. Pretty cool way to spend part of the day.
Hopefully the EDG (Tech Support) folks were vacated prior to the demolition ;)