Green Good Design Awards Tell a friend

New York, New York, USA

Architects: Reddymade
Design Team: Sally Leung, Suha Samara, Megan O'Brien, Tim Liu, Ezra Wu, Morgane Dugas, and David Cook
Structural Engineers: Stratford Engineering
Accessibility and LEED consultant: Steven Winters Associates 
Cork Furniture: Daniel Michalik 
Client: Google, Inc.
Photographers: Paul Warchol

Located at the base of the headquarters in Chelsea, the Google NYC store is a space where customers can experience the company’s hardware and services in a helpful way. The design of the store underscores the company’s emphasis on creating sustainable technology that is not an obstacle in our everyday.

The store reflects the same approach Google takes to designing their products: making sure they’re always helpful to people. The result is a space that is warm and inviting, where visitors can experience the products and services in a variety of hands-on and immersive ways.

Abounding in soft, tactile, and natural surfaces such as cork and wood, the design for the store puts the visitor at ease, welcoming those seeking help alongside those pursuing their curiosity.

A gravity-defying metal line twists its way through the room, introducing the intuitive whimsy of unexpected connections and free-form play while defining a sequence of spaces that showcase how Google’s products integrate into residential settings.

The warm lighting and neutral tones guide the eye to the “Imagination Space,” standing at the entryway to the store. A semi-circular node of extruded glass tubing suspended between the ceiling and the floor refracts the light and invites visitors to interact with Google’s products and technologies at an individual level on a human scale and experience the possibilities of technology.

A nod to New York’s windowshopping traditions, we installed a series of lit window boxes along the glass storefront, which display products while showcasing a special technology that allows an AR interaction with the products on the interior.

The Google Store Chelsea has been designed according to the highest standards of sustainable and renewable practice and has received LEED Platinum certification—with one of the highest point totals for retail projects in the world.

Notable materials in the space include cork furniture; flooring made from 100% recyclable material using factory waste in production with chemical-free maintenance; low-VOC material wall panels made from 100% PET plastic, containing at least 60% post-consumer content; and carbon-neutral floor coverings verified by the Interface Carbon Neutral Floors Program of Bureau Veritas.