Muji opens glass-rich shop in New York

Retailer Muji opened a new store, which makes great use of glass in its design, on the ground floor of the New York Times building in Manhattan in recent days.

Online resource PSFK explains that the structure essentially has only one "solid" wall, with the remaining ones, facing the street or an interior courtyard, being glazed.

The site notes that moves were made to keep the interior of the edifice as transparent as possible, resulting in it benefiting from a great deal of natural light.

A further factor taken into consideration in the design of the building was the location of its merchandise.

Shelves were rejected due to the glazed nature of the walls, meaning that the shops products are displayed on freestanding fixtures on the store floor.

All the storage is made from glass, further enhancing the transparency of the structure, the site notes.

Meanwhile, sector commentator Jonathan Glancey noted recently in the Guardian that almost all of the walls in a new John Lewis department store in Leicester are made from glass, creating an aesthetic of "layered transparency".