Twenty-two years into its existence, Google has finally launched its first brick-and-mortar store.
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 5000-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 a color palette of stark white and metallic gray, the Google Store has a much more natural aesthetic, showcasing furniture and flooring made from pale wood. This was a deliberate choice. “We wanted the space to continue the design principles that radiate from our product,” Ross says. “Our philosophy is that technology must fit into our lives, not stand out. We want this space to feel human because we believe that technology is a tool to amplify our possibilities as humans.”
The space ends up feeling more like an interactive museum or an exploratorium than a retail store. There’s a wall featuring every single product within the Nest family, with the name of the object underneath, like you might see at a natural history museum. In the middle, there’s furniture designed to mimic a particular room of the house, from the children’s playroom to the kitchen, interspersed with Google hardware. And along the windows, there are 18 “discovery boxes” featuring 3D animations that tell stories about a particular Google product, like the recycled materials that go into the Nest speakers.
One of the most compelling areas is a large installation in the middle that allows visitors to immerse themselves in an aspect of Google’s software by stepping into a small room surrounded by three enormous LED screens. Right now, the exhibit is focused on Google Translate: You can say a phrase, which is then translated into 24 languages that appear on the screens and are whispered in each language. “When I stand there, I get this incredible feeling of oneness with the universe,” Ross says. This exhibit will change every few months, so in time it could feature artistic explorations of Google Maps or Search.
There are three other rooms toward the back that are described as “sandboxes” because they give customers a chance to play around with different technology. One is for Pixel phones and tablets, another is devoted to gaming, and the third is designed to look like a living room that illustrates how useful Nest products can be. In many ways, the Google Store is a prime example of experiential commerce, meaning it’s not only a place for consumers to test and buy product, but also a destination to have entertaining experiences that help them develop a stronger attachment to the brand. It has been a growing trend over the past five years. “Some brands, I think, are having trouble making the leap toward experiential [retail],” Ross says. “The beauty of this brand is that it is inherently experiential. My job was to bring that beauty to life.”
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