Amazing New Apple Store Features Free-Floating Second Floor [Photos]

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Posted February 20, 2015 at 9:07pm by Shalom Levytam

Apple's new retail store in Hangzhou, China features amazing glass panels nearly 50 feet tall and a free-floating second floor.

The retail store was designed by Foster + Partners. The same firm that Steve Jobs chose to design Apple's new headquarters, Apple Campus 2. As noted by Wired, the company is pushing the limits of what can be done with modern structural engineering.

Take a closer look: The Hangzhou store’s ceilings are almost 50 feet high, with no columns to be found. The façade of glass panels reaches from floor to ceiling without interruption, meaning Foster + Partners had to push well beyond their previous feats in glass manufacturing to get 11 seamless panes. (By contrast, the glass cube that leads to Apple’s heavily trafficked subterranean Fifth Avenue store in New York is 32 feet tall, and the curved glass entrance to the store’s Shanghai store is 40 feet in height. The Cupertino campus itself will use enormous glass panels that are curved.)

The cantilevered second floor is just 10 centimeters at its thinnest. It floats over the main floor without a structural support in sight. At the floor's anchor points, tuned-mass dampers keep footsteps from causing it to sway. This technology is more common in skyscrapers and bridges to prevent swaying due to earthquakes.

With each new Apple Store, it appears as though Apple is looking to bring a new level of minimalism to the design. “Every aspect of the store has been optimized, minimized, and de-cluttered,” said the architects.

Check out a few images of the store below...

Amazing New Apple Store Features Free-Floating Second Floor [Photos]

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Bob - February 21, 2015 at 9:17am

To all those who simply wish to pick holes and criticise....go find something better to do. This is an amazing piece of architecture. Whether or not it 'floats' or is based on a cantilever/counterbalance is irrelevant. It is simple amazing in its design and provides exactly the look and feel Apple intended.

Cameron V - February 21, 2015 at 5:29am

The amount of design and engineering this took was huge. It is not something that can be done easily.

RickvanR - February 21, 2015 at 3:36am

It's called a Cantilever and is counter balanced inside the supporting wall.

LQNgineer - February 23, 2015 at 1:16am

Okay! Now, is it a "Soft Story" design?

jeffinvenice - February 20, 2015 at 11:09pm

*cantilevered

tw - February 20, 2015 at 10:58pm

How can you call this "floating"?? Would you consider your balcony a "floating" floor? That is what this essentially is.. a large balcony. It is supported by the wall it sticks out of.

gamerscul9870 - February 21, 2015 at 1:13am

What it means by float is nothing that's built into the walls supports it that easily just to make a joke out of it.

Adam - February 21, 2015 at 2:33am

I've never seen a balcony of that size!

LQNgineer - February 21, 2015 at 8:02am

I wouldn't respond as crudely as "Architect" has but I can confirm after 30 years practicing as a structural engineering consultant that this much more difficult than most comments reflect. First, building a structure from any common construction material is based upon having the strictly controlled material specifications as well as that of the mechanical connections. Glass is a rather generic term but if you consider the shape you need to consider live load (people and movable equipment based on code) between 50 psd for office space and 100-250 pounds per square foot for light storage and corridors. Consider dead load (the weight of the building materials per square foot; the allowable stresses of the materials in bending and sheer as well as the height to thickness ratios for the vertical panels to resist nickeling and forces of nature which may be to the advantage of the glass in shear wall loads parallel to panels with few if any penetrations used for doors and windows. A discussion like this also needs to consider the deflection or bending in the glass planks and at what stress will reach a failure mode both in static and dynamic load conditions. In other words this is a difficult problem to solve if only the glass were considered. If all other connections and imperfections are included then You could assume it is out of the range of hand calculations and into the arena of computers and finite element analysis and ver top level engineers who are very well educated. Not a simple physics problem by any means. Glad I'm retired.