What a time to be alive: Floating Apple store bobs up in Singapore
- Reference: 1599795733
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/11/apple_floating_singapore_store/
- Source link:
The new store can only be accessed through a 45m underwater tunnel from The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, a nearby mall attached to a hotel/casino complex.
Apple breathlessly detailed that the store's dome comprises 114 glass panels with exoskeleton-like sunshade rings. Alongside the usual Apple store accouterments, the store will also feature an underwater boardroom.
[1]
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At the apex of the building is a central opening - called an oculus - inspired by [2]the Pantheon in Rome. Unlike the original, the new store's oculus is covered by a glass panel.
[3]
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The building was designed by British architectural firm Foster + Partners, which also designed [4]Apple's $5bn headquarters in Cupertino, as well as several other Apple stores. The firm's founder, Lord Norman Foster, is behind the designs of [5]The Gherkin in London, and the restoration of the [6]Reichstag building in Berlin.
Apple is late to the floating phone store caper: The Reg spotted the one below in a Cambodian village in 2013 and detailed it in [7]this story .
A floating phone shop on Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia.
Visitors to the Cambodian store need to look out for crocodiles as they disembark. Such hazards are seldom encountered in Singapore. Outside of the financial district, anyway. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/09/11/pr_supplied_apple_singapore_floating_store.jpg
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/09/11/pr_supplied_apple_singapore_floating_store_occulus_ceiling.jpg
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Park
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_building
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/25/the_floating_mobile_phone_shop_on_the_edge_of_the_internet/
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Looks like a nice place to view typhoons.
Wrong place,limited footfall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI54HPLFaFc
Floor B2, seems to be a long store mostly in the corridor leading out and up to the sphere set among clothes stores, next to Zara. (Bored husband impulse shopping?)
Imagine a normal day, you could be the only customer in the sphere just wanting to browse, as Apple sales people hover over you! To get out, find the escape escalator, and head down a long corridor past more sales people to the same entrance you came in, run run, you can make it, only 20 more metres to go!
Next up, Apple opens its Kuala Lumpur Malaysia flagship store in Genting Highlands, on top of an ivory tower behind the Theme Park, past the Casino, all you have to do is drive 50 miles, park your car at the foot of the mountain, catch the cable car up, walk past the casino and restaurants, out of the entrance, past the outdoor theme park, dive into the main pool, find the hidden entrance, ascend the tower, slay the dragon, and then they might sell you a iPhone if you look cool enough.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=genting%20highlands&t=images&client=opensearch
Underwater access ...
I got the wrong end of the stick when I read the start of this piece - I thought that the only way in was by wearing scuba gear.
That would have been cool!
The Latter Day Mac
And at the turn of the millennia the old gods had to make room for the new and give way to the church of Jobs and the Latter Day Mac. In the east they build a temple to perform the ascension ritual of commerce.