Google’s First Retail Store Is the Anti-Apple
Ivy Ross, the Google designer who conceptualized the space, offers us an inside look
By Elizabeth Segran
Twenty-two years into its existence, Google is finally launching its first brick-and-mortar store tomorrow morning.
Housed on the ground floor of Google’s New York headquarters in Chelsea, the store will be a place to explore and purchase Google’s hardware, including Pixel phones and Nest devices, as well as bring products in for repair. But it will also be a lot more than that, according to Ivy Ross, Google’s VP of hardware design, UX and research, who also served as the creative director of the Google Store. It will be a place for consumers to immerse themselves in Google’s universe and understand how the company sees its technology fitting into our lives. “This space is designed to be a physical expression of what Google stands for,” Ross says.
The store is a 5,000-square-foot space that takes up a full city block, with large windows that dapple the wood floors with sunlight. While many tech stores, including Apple and Tesla, are designed to look futuristic, with…
