Retail: The Latest Architecture and News

Interface Studio Architects shared with us their proposal for the Hong Kong Car Parc competition, which aims at romanticizing the car as an active urban object while simultaneously implementing sustainable strategies. In addition to including parking spaces in the rotational design, shopping, food and landscaping aspects are also included in the program. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Dutch firm Shift Architecture Urbanism is the winner of a first prize, two second prizes and a third prize in the competition for an eco-retail development, the Groene Kamer, in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The aim of the development is to create a new type of country estate where eco-retail, nature and recreation are brought together in an innovative way; A place where city and countryside meet, both physically and programmatically. The competition’s goal was to select the designers of four different building typologies which will populate the masterplan designed by Fabric and Lola landscape architects. Shift’s design, Topos, makes use of a topographic approach that allows for a profound integration of architecture and landscape. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Thomas Park has compiled a gallery of all 357 of Apple’s stores from all over the world. The images are pulled directly from Apple’s own website and include information about where the store falls among the 357, where it is located and when it was opened. Park’s initiative was sparked by the desire to detect the evolution in Apple’s strategy of storefront design. Apple’s retail architecture shows the success of closely adhering to design principles in the visual branding of products, the products themselves, and the environment in which they are actually sold. Apple has a simple, crisp and sleak design that comes through in their products and in their stores and give off the same feeling of reliable design.

More after the break.