Largest Apple Store Opens Today!
A short while ago, we shared Apple’s latest cylindrical store designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in Shanghai (check out great photo sets by Flickr user Lesh51 and Roy Zipstein previously featured on AD). This Saturday morning, Apple is set to open its biggest store yet! The 30,1000 ft store will be situated in Covent Garden in London with more space, more staff and more merchandise than any other Apple store. The project is a refurbishment of an 1876 building featuring Peter Bohlin’s classical glass and steel details, such as the trademark Apple staircases. While Bohlin had to work within an existing framework, he was still able to bring Apple’s personality into the project. Each room is dedicated to a specific Apple gadet, whether it be an iPod or a Mac book, and entire walls are covered with rows of iPads. If you’re in the area, let us know what you think of the new store!
Video via YouTube user electricpigtv.
Update: Shanghai Apple Store / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson by Roy Zipstein
As we reported earlier last week, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s newest Apple store (and China’s first!) opened on July 10. For the past five years, photographer Roy Zipstein has been documenting the stores, traveling to America, Europe, Asia and even Australia to highlight the artistry of the sleek structures. Similar to how it takes a certain kind of architect to manifest Apple’s aesthetic and technological philosophy in built-form, it takes a certain kind of photographer to capture that essence on film. Zipstein commented via Bernstein&Andriulli, “The Apple Stores are so beautifully designed, inside and out. It’s been very interesting to witness the design process evolve over the last few years, through the use of different materials such as glass, stainless steel and stone, and the evolving interpretation of the interior space. Having the architects present at some of these shoots and being able to exchange thoughts with them has been an added bonus for me.”
We’re excited to share Zipstein’s latest photographs from Shanghai! And, be sure to see our previous set of images thanks to Flicker user Lesh51.
Shanghai Apple Store / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Similar to their identifiable products, the Apple stores require a sleek, almost instantly recognizable, aesthetic. As keepers of the latest technology, the buildings’ minimalist interiors boast a calm and sophisticated demeanor, complimenting, yet not overshadowing, their prized possessions. It may come as a surprise that the leading architects behind the stores are Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ), a firm that had never designed a retail store before Apple and whose principal, Peter Bohlin, winner of the AIA Gold Medal, ironically doesn’t use email.
Bohlin has awed us in the past, especially with Apple’s second Manhattan retail store located on Fifth Avenue. Turning a tough retail space into a successful masterpiece, the store’s iconic cube, a 32-foot glass structure, marks the store’s entrance and beckons customers down to the retail level which is illuminated with natural light. And now, BCJ has just unveiled their latest Apple store, and the first of its kind in China which seeks to emulate similar design decisions as the Fifth Avenue project.
Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Architects: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Client: Mills College, Oakland, California
Landscape Architects: Ron Lutsko Associates
Structural Engineers: Rutherford & Chekene
Mechanical / Plumbing Engineers: Rumsey Engineers
Lighting: Silverman & Light
IT/AV: TeeCom Design Group
Acoustics: Charles Salter Associates
Civil Engineering: BKF Engineers
Project Area: 28,000 sq ft
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Nic Lehoux
Arcadian Architecture: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson-12 Houses
The architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson believes that “the sensuality of place, the emotive qualities of materials, and the ability to give pleasure and insight, to comfort and to transport can produce humane and spirited architecture.” Whether designing corporate headquarters for Pixar Animation Studios, the Software Engineering Institute for Carnegie Mellon University, the new Apple Stores in New York, Chicago, and Tokyo, or the twelve wooded retreats shown in this book, the firm’s architecture is alive to the subtleties of place, man-made or natural, and to the rich possibilities of materials and the means of construction.
The houses in Arcadian Architecture are exquisitely crafted of wood and stone and other natural materials, and are all sited within beautiful wooded, mountainous, or lakeside locales, from New York State to Washington State, and from the woods of Connecticut to the mountains of Montana. One of the highlights of this book is that it publishes, for the first time, the extraordinary, huge, extremely private and secluded, residential complex in Washington State that was built for Bill and Melinda Gates. Each house is presented on at least thirty pages, and is depicted by sumptuous new color photography, richly detailed conceptual sketches, presentation drawings, and construction documents.
Editor: Oscar Riera Ojeda
Publisher: Rizzoli
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 426
Buy this book
Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Architects: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA
Project Area: 2,044 sqm
Year: 2007
Photographs: BCJ
