Macao. Foster + Partners designs the new Apple store, an oasis of tranquility

Technology, entertainment and art come together in the new Apple Cotai Central in Macau designed by Foster + Partners. A luminescent cube, whose pure geometry and warm light “shaped like a lighthouse” attracts passers-by, set in a quiet bamboo grove and an outside square. The design is the result of a close collaboration between the Apple design team led by the chief design officer, Sir Jonathan Ive and Angela Ahrendts, senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores with the architects of Foster + Partners. Created from a densely planted bamboo forest, the square forms an oasis of tranquility, an urban room that attracts people to the site, creating for the first time pedestrian links between the surrounding buildings.

Stefan Behling, head of Foster + Partners, said: “We wanted to create something very simple and pure – a beautiful and elegant building that integrates the sounds, the sights and the colors of Macau, while incorporating a sense of clarity and stillness. The design creates two distinct spaces, one inside and one outside, imbued with a sense of beauty deriving from the innovative use of natural materials”. Apple Cotai Central is a “paper lantern” that mysteriously lights up. The patrons of the store are surrounded by bright stone panels that glow during the day, while at night the cube radiates a warm light, in contrast to the bright lights of Macau. The glass composite façade consists of five layers of glass integrated with thin stone layers. The walls look like translucent stone, similar to colored glass. The structure is supported by only three corner columns wrapped in mirrored stainless steel that reflect the motifs and colors of the façade, dematerializing the structure and blending perfectly with the surrounding environment. The interior was designed as the exact spatial inversion of the square, with a quiet bamboo grove carved into the forest outside and placed under the central soaring atrium.There is a large central skylight with pyramidal openings that brings natural light deep in the interior spaces.