Extraordinarily bold and now iconic glass entrance structure. Two-way spanning glass lamella roof grid supported on splice laminated glass columns on Fifth Avenue.
2008 Honour Award, AIA Pennsylvania
2007 Excellence in Architecture, AIA San Francisco
2007 Award of Excellence for Design, AIA New York State
Opened in May 2006 and 20,000 square feet in size, this store sits in the pedestrian plaza adjacent to the General Motors Building on the south-east corner of Central Park.
The 10 metre (32.5 feet) glass cube entrance stands on the refurbished plaza and appears to punch up through the sidewalk. It is structured with multi-laminate glass beams and columns stabilised by the glass walls, all connected by discrete stainless steel fittings.
The roof beams have a lamella-type structural arrangement, so that each beam spans between the centres of the two adjacent orthogonal beams. At the centre of the roof hangs a 2.4 metre (8 feet) illuminated Apple Logo.
Access to the subterranean store is via a glass staircase or elevator. The circular lift sits at the centre of the plaza opening and the stair wraps around the glass lift core. Both stair and lift are supported by the basement slab.
The glass lift walls also form the inner wall of the stair. The external guardrail picks up the outer edge of the treads by custom fittings. The guardrail spans as a helical beam supported on glass gallows shaped brackets, which are fixed at the base.
Each Apple store is a collaboration between specialist designers, fabricators and installers from across Europe and the USA. Every project attempts to explore and move forward the technology and language of structural glass.
© Eckersley O’Callaghan 2024
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