Apple Store Opens

A Welcoming Light

With a skylight and glass staircase, a new store is all sunshine and Apples

By JANET EASTMAN

Thursday August 1, 2002

THREE Apple loyalists, unaccustomed to the sun, waited outside for seven hours recently to be the first customers inside the computer company's new store at the Grove shopping center in the Fairfax district.

Someone's sympathetic remark, "Well, at least the weather's nice," was met with an incredulous, "Do we look like outside people?"

Well, guys, you better find some shades because there's something new in this Apple store: natural light. A skylight, about the size of a four-car garage door, dominates the two-story space, spraying sunshine onto software libraries, product pods and the store's centerpiece, a mesmerizing glass staircase.

The skylight and the staircase, which match the translucent and metal look of Apple's computers, are part of a new, two-story design for the company's stores that recently debuted here and in New York's SoHo.

The light-reflecting, see-through staircase that hangs between the first and second floors and floats a few inches off the ground is designed to entice people upstairs, say Apple retail space designers.

The staircase's six 5-by-19-foot glass panes are suspended from the second floor and hold five tons of laminated-glass treads. Made in Germany to sway with California quakes, the staircase occupies about one-tenth of the 8,000-square-foot store. It is illuminated by the skylight during the day, and at night, a dozen floodlights embedded in the floor make it look like a lighted jewelry box.

No commercial messages or products cling to the glass sides, adding to the sense that the staircase serves only two functions: to transport you safely between floors and to look good.

This kind of simple practicality and attractiveness is mirrored in Apple's approach to product design and packaging. Empty space, either on product boxes or in stores, helps people focus on what's important: the product.

The first floor is spartan, in an inviting way. Boxes of inventory are kept in a storeroom, cash registers are tucked in the back of the store, and the minimal soft-gray signage is attached to the ceiling to guide shoppers without overwhelming them.

Prominent on the floor are 50 Apple computers, including the iMacs that resemble desk lamps with their white, rounded hard-drive bases, metallic swivel arms and flat-panel screens. The sleek computers share counter space with add-ons used to record music, edit movies, publish magazines or whatever interests the shopper.

In the photography area, a white wavy table holds a Minolta DiMage X digital camera, which is the size of a cigarette case, and an iBook. Nearby is an Epson printer, all plugged in and waiting for shoppers to touch and try.

The first floor follows the standard store model created by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and his retail design team, who spent 15 months making sketches, building models and experimenting with full-size store layouts in a Cupertino warehouse before opening the first Apple stores in Glendale and McLean, Va., in May 2001.

"The store is bright and clean, and looks like a giant G4 cube"--Apple's distinctive acrylic cube of a computer--says Clint Stevenson. The 17-year-old Malibu resident and his friends, Justin Holguin, 17, also of Malibu, and Matt Van Horn, 18, of Pacific Palisades, were the Apple die-hards who held a vigil to see the store first when it opened July 26.

"Rather than sterile and lifeless, it just feels pure and happy," says Stevenson.

The second floor is devoted to after-the-sale services, where customers and their children can learn how to use computers. A cheery kids' zone has been mapped out by red rugs encircling two white Corian tables.

On the 2-foot-high tables are a ring of eMac computers, desktop models designed for education, which are loaded with children's computer games and connected to the Internet.

Opposite the children's area is a theater with a rear-projection screen where composers, film editors and other professionals demonstrate how they use Apple's Mac products.

Near the theater area is the modestly named Genius Bar, staffed by Apple experts. The wooden help desk has 10 black bar stools designed by Alvor Alto, and a 34-inch-high pull-out table that, like the product display tables, is low enough to be wheelchair-accessible.

Apple Store at the Grove, 189 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles, (323) 965-8400; www.apple. com.

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