3.14.2009

Stairways to Heaven 3





"Heatherwick Studio was invited by Longchamp to design the company's first contemporary flagship store. With a retail space situated above street level, the challenge was to find a way to draw people up into the store from the street.

The studio's solution uses natural light, from a large glazed core cut through the building, to draw people up a landscape, rather than a conventional staircase or escalator, to the floor above. Constructed in 1¼" hot-rolled steel and taking six months to build, the stair landscape weighs 55 tons and is an installation of ribbon-like forms that divide and converge to form a topography of walkways, landings and steps.

The balustrades are formed using aerospace windscreen technology to create a series of uniquely-formed panels that drape with the fluidity of fabric, rejecting the familiar rigidity and flatness of conventional sheet glass."

images via iht

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