“As the 12th anniversary of Apple’s retail stores approaches next month, the company is significantly shifting the chain’s very foundation — its architecture,” Gary Allen reports for ifoAppleStore.
“Sources say the company will no longer build street-level stores that feature an arched glass roof, and that it has reached out to another architecture/design firm to carry the chain through the next decade,” Allen reports. Strangely, at least one motive for the changes is money, the sources say. While the stores’ design has been the work of many, from the beginning major credit has been given to architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and interior designers Eight Inc. Both firms have navigated both mall and street-level stores through the early days of black metal storefronts and wood floors, and into the modern age of all-glass storefronts and stone tiles. They have also handled high-profile stores, which have alternated between large, modern façades and carefully-restored historic buildings. Now, things are changing.”
Allen reports, “Sources have told Marketing Magazine that Apple has retained the firm Foster + Partners to assist in designing future stores. The firm specializes in both architecture and interior design, although it’s unknown which of those talents will be used by Apple. Notably, the company is the primary designer of Apple’s future and circular corporate campus in Cupertino.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: MacDailyNews has begun a fundraiser via Crowdwise in honor of the Boston Marathon Bombing Victims via The American Red Cross.
For more information or to donate, please click here.
Related article:
Apple hires ‘Mothership’ campus architect Norman Foster’s firm to revamp retail stores, sources say – April 10, 2013
Could be that the acoustical problems weren’t solvable with all that glass and stone.
That noise you heard was a store full of customers saying Ohh! Ahh! and I want one!
The new stores will be thinner and lighter, with bigger screens and faster checkout.
Do you really want to go with a firm that did such a terrible job on the cost estimates the first time around?
Hey, maybe all the new stores will be round.
I think the abundance of natural light may be a mistake because it does not show off the display screens well and is not similar to the environment where the monitor screens will be ultimately used.
Not a problem in the 5th Ave store. All underground.