Apple’s first store in South Korea and 500th worldwide, with full-length windows that blur the lines between the store and the street.

Apple Garosu-gil is the tech giant’s first flagship store in South Korea and 500th worldwide. Located in Garosu-gil’s cultural chic shopping district, the building is composed of two volumes: the first dedicated to the retail scope, the second reserved for a parking area.

Eckersley O’Callaghan has engineered the design of the eight-metre-tall glass facade and rear slot windows from Initial Approach and Concept stage to Construction Documents. The structural glass also included the design of the internal glass balustrades. We collaborated with the architect in developing several scheme designs to achieve the desired atheistic while complying with local code requirements.

The main challenge for the facade has been to guarantee the structural and the thermal performance of the facade build-up in a tight facade zone. We performed rigorous structural and thermal calculations, which enabled the systems to meet the performance requirements on the retail building resulting in natural stone cladding walls with a green roof.

We also engineered the rear car park walls, comprising 14.5-metre aluminium louvres, with areas of solid panelling.

Location
Seoul, Korea

Client
Apple

Architect
Foster + Partners