Less than a week after a report from Bloomberg Businessweek outlined how Steve Jobs' strict requirements for "fit and finish" at the company's upcoming Norman Foster-designed Apple Campus 2 in Cupertino have seen the cost of the massive project balloon to $5 billion, Marketing reports [via Pocket-lint] that Foster's firm has been tapped to work on retail store projects for Apple.
Sources close to the project said Foster + Partners, which has designed buildings including the McLaren Technology Centre and Hearst Tower in New York, is helping Apple on the retail store design brief. [...]
A Foster + Partners spokeswoman said: "Any project for Apple is confidential and therefore we are unable to comment."
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Apple has long worked with design firm 8 Inc on its retail stores, dating back to store-within-a-store concepts that preceded Apple's own retail locations. The retail partnership between 8 Inc and Apple built upon a previous arrangement that saw 8 Inc assisting with the design of Apple's displays at Macworld trade shows.
While 8 Inc has long served as Apple's design partner for the company's retail stores, architectural expertise for many of Apple's high-profile locations has been provided by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
It currently remains unclear how extensive the relationship between Apple and Foster + Partners will be for retail stores, including whether 8 Inc and/or Bohlin Cywinski Jackson are being entirely replaced.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)This building design is so inefficient it's RIDICULOUS (i.e. loads of extra walking due solely to the shape of the building).
How so?
A circle DECREASES walking time vs. a rectangular building.
In a rectangular building, you have to walk the entire distance of the building to go from the left to the right. In a circular building, you would walk out to the courtyard in the center and go to the side of the building you desired - 'short cutting' the walk around the circle.
Think about this - what is closer - 10 houses all along one side of a street, or 10 houses circling around a cul-de-sac?
Concern trolls. You know the story about the wood floors on the floor of the Apple Stores? The fancy glass staircases? The Italian marble? This was Steve's love. If you want to put up a Walmart, it's very cheap. Not even worth being called architecture. It's a bunch of drawings with measurements on it. If the "overruns" really concern people, they can bite me. Steve's vision of this building should be executed. The people behind this are the kinds of idiots who want more dividends, which is the real path to becoming another Microsoft.
again before all these people who chime in about costs - if you don't understand the construction industry you will look foolish.
Do tell oh wise one.