Apple's glass Fifth Avenue store in New York City has reopened to the public following a renovation by Foster + Partners that added a spiral staircase, skylights and public plaza.
Apple Fifth Avenue is an underground Apple Store in Manhattan, nestled below a plaza that is in front of Edward Durell Stone's 50-storey General Motors office building. The store overlooks the southeast corner of Central Park and was opened in 2006 by Apple founder Steve Jobs, with an "iconic glass cube" for its entrance.

Before being closed for several years for renovation, it was "one of the most photographed attractions in the city... [and] Steve Jobs' defining symbol for Apple Fifth Avenue," said British architecture firm Foster + Partners, who overhauled the store with Apple and its former chief design officer Jony Ive. "It's a 100 per cent design collaboration with Jony," Foster + Partners' head of studio Stefan Behling told Dezeen at the store's opening on 19 September.

The team restored the glass cube entrance and much of the store's floorplan below. The main intervention was to dig several feet into the base to create higher ceilings in the subterranean store.
"We decided to dig deeper and make the store higher," Behling said.
Another key addition is 80 skylights that are arranged in a grid across the ceiling and flood the store with natural light. The lightwells are round and identical, and are integrated into a knitted, off-white fabric that cre...