Sydney Apple Store is simply gorgeous

Good news for you mate, especially for you who live in Sydney-Australia and for you who love to travel to the hometown of the legendary crocodile hunter: Steve Irwin. The Sydney Apple Store has finally finished, and ready for official opening tomorrow at June 19th on local Australia time.

What make this peculiar Apple Store so special are two things: it’s the second largest Apple store in the world & has the same glass façade design like the famous glass “Cube” of 5th Avenue Apple Store in NYC. Thus making it the most largest single sheets of laminated glass in the history of the world.

And like the “Cube”, I believe this Sydney Apple Store will become another tourist spot of attraction; aside from the existing Sydney Opera House.

With the growing popularity of Apple’s products in the Asia-Pacific region, it’s a good business point of view (and also profitable) for Apple to establish a firmer grip on the other part of the world; that’s far from its origin homeland. Why Australia? I think this got to do with law and politic-economy stability of the chosen country. Other countries in Asia-Pacific region such as Thailand, Filipina, Indonesia, and Malaysia are all in constant turmoil. While Singapore is too small, both in market and people.

Gizmodo Australia was reporting that the store has 3 levels. The bottom level is dedicated to Macs, with over 90 Macs on display. There's also free Wi-Fi or internet access for anybody.

On level 1, there's all the other new products from Apple - iPods, Apple TV, and third party products to accompany your Mac purchase.

On the top level, there's the world's largest Genius Bar. It's over 20 metres long. There are areas dedicated to Pro Labs, workshops and one-on-one sessions. They have the capacity to offer 1000 training sessions each day.

There are over 125 employees at the Sydney Store. Like the rest of the Apple Stores, they're all colour-coded with a different selection of shirts: orange for concierge, blue for product specialists.

From an architectural point of view, this Sydney Apple Store first design proposal set another mouth gasping record. The project is located at the base of Sydney sky-rise building just outside the spectacular maritime setting of the King Street Wharf, is estimated to cost in excess of $15 million in renovations; as reported by AppleInsider.

The front glass atrium blanket the facade of all three floors, with a glowing 10-foot Apple logo suspended between levels two and three.

And according to the documents that were acquired by AppleInsider, show Apple have retained the services of ISP Lighting Design to provide the luminescence, Eckersley O'Callaghan to construct the glass staircase, and Flack + Kurtz to tackle the electrical wiring.

Apple’s 5th Avenue store’s trademark: the twisted glass-staircase, is also present at Sydney Apple Store. This time it’s designed as straight glass staircase, which appears to run lengthwise across the right rear within the store.

The documents also indicate the Cupertino-based company has leased three other spaces within the building at 77 King Street, including a storage area and conference room inside the new store.

Why I’m telling you all these, complete with the store’s floor drawing plans? Well, I’m hoping that at least someday one of you’ll be brave enough to snatch the upcoming iPhone 3G from the new store’s storage room (in Mission Impossible style – like in the right picture); before July 11th arrived. Hey, who knows? ;-p ~LOL~

Apple sure knows how to make everything that is associated with its brand, to become cool and jaw-dropping. This store is not an exception, if the word “gorgeous” is not enough to describe its magnificent design; then perhaps the word “astonishing” is more appropriate. ;-)

Note that some of the pictures in this post are thumbnails, so just click on each to view them larger. And for more photo shots of the new Sydney Apple Store, head on to Gizmodo Australia’s coverage web page.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]