Amid Apple Campus 2 Cost Concerns, Foster + Partners Reportedly Taking on Apple Retail Store Projects

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."

apple_campus_2_rendering
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.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

nikhsub1 Avatar
153 months ago
Don't people realize that space ships cost a lot of money?
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
153 months ago
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?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Swift Avatar
153 months ago
Scrooges

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.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bandalay Avatar
153 months ago
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.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MagnusVonMagnum Avatar
153 months ago
This building design is so inefficient it's RIDICULOUS (i.e. loads of extra walking due solely to the shape of the building). Throw in the cost of the building and it shows exactly how far off the map Steve Jobs could be at times and how even further off the map Tim Cook must be to even CONSIDER actually making this building in this shape. It would be a total waste of Apple's resources.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Born Again Avatar
153 months ago
again before all these people who chime in about costs - if you don't understand the construction industry you will look foolish.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)