Apple Soho
New York, New York
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

A new retail store for Apple Computers is as spare as the company's new ad campaign

© Peter Aaron/Esto

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Raul A. Barreneche

Apple's charismatic C.E.O. and founder, Steve Jobs, tapped architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ)—who designed Apple's industrial-design studios and the headquarters of Jobs's animation venture, Pixar—to transform a 1920s post office into a sleek, simple yet high-tech emporium.

As realized for Apple, on the ground floor, the store contains roughly 5,200 square feet of retail space, divided into "solution zones," in Apple parlance: Photos, Movies, Music, Home, and Pro (office computers). In the solution zones, customers can test flat-screen Macs equipped with the latest animation software, try out digital cameras, or listen to the output of barely-there bubble-shaped plastic speakers. Technical service and diagnostic help are served up at two, 20-foot-long "genius bars" on the second floor, which contains another 4,300 square feet of retail. The upper level also has a kids' area with 12 computer stations; a software department; an area called "etcetera," where iPods, scanners, sub-woofers, and other peripheral devices are sold; and a 45-seat open theater where salespeople demonstrate new Apple products and visitors attend classes and "Made on a Mac" presentations.

BCJ designed the SoHo store from scratch but also drew on a kit of parts developed in an earlier prototyping exercise led by Jobs that included BCJ, Gensler, the San Francisco design firm Eight Inc., and Johnson. The prototypes established a material palette and standard details to create continuity and a recognizable image among dozens of Apple stores that includes blond maple floors, Corian counters, and modular ceilings with aluminum troughs. BCJ expanded the basic palette for the SoHo space, adding cool gray Pietra Serena stone floors, matte stainless-steel column wrappers, and oversize maple Parsons tables and benches designed by Eight Inc. The materials are all simple and familiar but are executed with a razor-sharp precision that seems appropriate for one of the world's biggest computer makers.

The shop's signature element is a structurally daring staircase of chunky laminated glass treads bolted to supporting structural-glass walls. The stair is placed on axis with the entrance and set beneath a new 70-foot-long skylight defining an atrium within the two-story shop.

A structural etched-glass bridge connecting the two wings of the second floor—engineered, like the staircase, by the New York office of Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners—continues the glass theme.

Read more about this project in our Business Week / Architectural Record Awards section. See the October 2002 issue of Architectural Record for the origional full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Apple Soho

Location:
New York City

Gross square footage:
17,000 sq. ft.

Client:
Apple Computer www.apple.com

Architect:
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
733 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: 510-841-5564
Fax: 5108415090
www.bcj.com

Associate Architect:
Ronnette Riley Architect
www.ronnetteriley.com