New York, New York, USA
Designed by Suchi Reddy of Reddymade, the new Google NYC store in Chelsea has been designed as a place where customers can experience the company’s hardware and services in a fun and sustainable environment.
The Google Store occupies a ground-floor space in the former Port Authority Building—a vast Art Deco structure that is home to the tech company’s NYC headquarters.
The new Google NYC store recently won a 2022 Green Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Welcoming its visitors since the summer of 2021, Google Store occupies a ground-floor space in the former Port Authority Building—an art deco structure that is home to the tech company’s NYC headquarters.
Located at the base of the headquarters in Chelsea, the store’s design underscores the company’s emphasis on creating sustainable technology that is not an obstacle in everyday life.
The store reflects the same approach Google takes to designing its products, making sure they’re always helpful to people.
The result is a warm and inviting space, 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 window-shopping traditions, Reddymade has installed a series of lit window boxes along the glass storefront, which display products while showcasing a unique 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.
Project: Google Store NYC
Architects: Reddymade Design LLC.
Design Lead: Suchi Reddy
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 consultants: Steven Winters Associates
Cork Furniture: Daniel Michalik
Client: Google, Inc.
Photographers: Paul Warchol