Foster & Partners’ redesign of the Regent Street Apple store reflects a changing attitude to technology

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Nigel Young, Apple

The redesign of Apple’s 12-year-old flagship Regent Street store reflects our changing relationship with technology and with the company’s products says Rafe Bertram, who led the project for Foster & Partners. The original store was characterised by steel and glass – notably in a feature staircase – which “reflected a fascination with the engineered object”, says Bertram. “But as people have become more comfortable with the technology, the focus has moved from the product itself to what you do with it”.

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The new store, therefore, was conceived as a warm, welcoming forum for events and activities in which centre stage is given to people, including guests invited to use the space for presentations of their own work.

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A U-shaped mezzanine that ran around two sides of the store was stripped out, along with the central stair. A new upper deck is pushed to the back of the space, accessed by stairs at either side, leaving a large, double-height volume at the front of the store, whose organisation is described in the language of urban planning.

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Apple’s distinctive oak tables, based on the workbenches in its California design studio, are retained, arranged in ‘avenues’ that guide visitors deeper into the store. These routes lead to a ‘town square’ below the mezzanine, where up to 75 guests can be seated on oak stools before a giant screen. The avenues are lined with 12 Ficus Alii trees, whose ability to thrive indoors was tested in Fosters’ own office. Overhead is a stretched glass-fibre fabric ceiling, back-lit by reflected LED light, that is deliberately plain: “It should feel like nothing; it’s a sky”, says Fosters’ partner Stefan Behling.

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The walls, columns and stairs are formed from Pietra Castana limestone, which has fine markings, almost like wood grain. Corners are rounded and exposed faces are sandblasted – though the handrail to the stairs is honed. The soft, sculpted forms were created with a mix of 5-axis robotic CNC cutters and more traditional craftsmanship. Constructional details are carefully suppressed throughout, says Bertram: “We want the material to speak for itself”.

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