Apple London - Light Ceiling
Regent Street, London
Building architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Berkeley/Gensler, London
Engineer: Eckersley O'Callaghan Structural Design, London
2004

On 20 November 2004, Apple opened their first European high-profile store in London's Regent Street, to great acclaim. The design is based on previous stores in the USA and Japan, and includes some of the already well-known architectural features such as the all-glass stair and bridge. Most of the existing high-profile stores have a skylight over the stair, but in the Regent Street store, located inside a 6-storey building, it has been substituted by the "Light Ceiling".

The ceiling has been specially designed for the Regent Street store by Carpenter/Lowings. Intended to evoke the sensation of arriving under a daylit canopy it uses 24 very large tilted planes of etched semi-reflective glass and the subtle contrasts in colour between different types of lighting to play with perceptions of inside and outside. The subtle reflectivity of the ceiling also brings a dynamism to the space as the shadows and the images of people using the glass stair are projected on it from uplights beneath the stair.

The same design has also been used in the Apple high-profile store in Nagoya, Japan.

Each ceiling panel is constructed as a unit 6 metres by 750mm using a single custom-etched and coated sheet of low-iron glass, bonded to a stainless steel sheet, with integrated lighting and reflectors. Two independently controlled lamp sources concealed behind the panel allow the colour of the light to be varied infinitely between blue and white to evoke the reflected colour of the sky. Intended to complement the visual impact of the stairs, the directionality of the tilt of the panels creates a dynamic effect as one arrives in the store, moves up the stairs and circulates within the upper floor.