The long awaited Apple Store outpost in Macau in South China—Apple Centre Cotai—by our friends at Foster + Partners has been completed, and its bold vision of an interior landscaped, transparent space with a meaningful connection to its surroundings has been brought to fruition. Notably, tall bamboo chutes tower in the structure’s central atrium; the store is situated in a plaza, surrounded by bamboo thickets, and a glowing cube within illuminates the structure, this being made possible by its uniquely structured and composed facade: five layers of of glass, overlaid with thin layers, suggesting a solid stone edifice, but one which through light can pass. The structural frame is supported by three corner columns wrapped in reflective stainless steel. Natural light enters the building through a grid of skylights in pyramidal and strip shapes.
