Stanford 2 Store – February 2013
Construction work continued during February 2013 on the Stanford 2 Apple store, which will eventually replace the nearby mini-store that was dwarfed in 2012 by the grand opening of a Microsoft store. The photos below show the enormous size of the store and sketch in details about its unique design: a small, two-level box at the rear, and a suspended roof over an all-glass storefront. The store could open in late 2013.
This rendering shows the future store layout: all-glass retail space topped by a swooping roof. A rectangular building sits behind the retail space, but is inconspicuous in this view.
The expanded store sits on a corner space overlooking a plaza. The storefront will be 120 feet wide, and the front 30 feet of the store will be a glass shell. The rear 36 feet of the store is composed of a standard, rectangular building for back-of-house operations.
The construction site is surrounded by a thick black, opaque screen, and the seams are double taped to prevent views of the inside. However, the structural steel provides a future-view of the store’s design. The back-of-house space (left) is a standard rectangular building of about 36′ x 120′. The retail space under the suspended structural steel (right) will be enclosed on three sides by glass, and will be about 30′ deep and 100′ wide.
This view show the structural steel jutting out from the rear steel structure that will provide support for the thin roof shell over the retail space. Scaffolding now holds the steel in place until welding can be completed. The entire space under this steel will be enclosed in glass.
Another view of the roof structure from the right side of the future store, showing that it is suspended out from the rear, rectangular steel box that will be the back-of-house space. There are no columns supporting the overhang from the ground.