In the first few minutes of Apple’s annual iPhone launch event today, sandwiched between a dedication of the event space to the late Steve Jobs and a promotional video about the Apple Watch, audience members were treated to a brief interlude about the company’s architecture. In addition to opening its brand-new $5 billion Cupertino headquarters designed by Norman Foster, the company is in the process of overhauling its retail design–including re-naming hundreds of stores “town squares.”
“We don’t call them stores anymore, we call them town squares,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, on stage describing these gathering spaces.