That MacBook Air-shaped roof on Apple’s new Foster + Partners-designed store may look cool, but it’s also apparently pretty dangerous in the face of Chicago’s brutal winters. Most of the store’s outdoor space has been roped off in the aftermath of extreme cold this week, with large icicles dangling from the roof’s edges and signs reading ‘Watch for Falling Snow and Ice’ strewn all around. As reported by local blog Spudart and 9to5 Mac, the flat roof seems to be collecting precipitation, which is then freezing as it drips down the sides and creating an accidental ice skating rink on the walkways.

It’s easy to mock the store’s designers for putting form over function and failing to think about such an obvious component of the building’s everyday conditions – this is Chicago, after all, where temps regularly dip below zero, and wind chills of -30 are expected over the next week. But Apple says the situation is not what it seems.

“The roof has a warming system that’s built into it,” says Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy. “It needed some fine-tuning and it got re-programmed today. It’s hopefully a temporary problem.”

So, the issue is actually a technological malfunction rather than a design flaw. The idea of building ice-melting abilities right into the roof is actually pretty cool, and the roof design also includes internal support columns that funnel water away from the edges, eliminating the need for gutters.

Construction is in full swing on Chicago’s new Apple store by Foster + Partners, revealing a surprise design feature that wasn’t visible in the firm’s early renderings: a gigantic MacBook for a roof. When the project was initially unveiled in 2015, the drawings depicted a sleek two-story structure with river views, glass walls and a slimline roof canopy that looks like it’s precariously balancing on slender supports. But construction crews recently added a shiny metallic silver finish to that canopy – and a familiar white Apple logo.

The store is a relocation of Apple’s Chicago flagship, and will measure about 20,000 square feet. The glass walls range from 14 to 32 feet in height, but there’s little danger of breakage, as they consist of four layers of half-inch-thick glass melded with additional layers of thicker laminated glass. The carbon fiber roof is made of a similar material as yacht hulls, which is what gives it that iconic sheen. It’s four feet thick in the center and just four inches thick at its tapered edges.

You can see this unexpected addition in action in the video above. DNA Chicago reports that crews affixed the logo and left it in place for no more than 60 minutes before removing it again, but it seems likely that it’ll return, especially since the Chicago Tribune reported back in March that the logo would be part of the design. The Tribune has more photos of the construction process.

Apple Stores and Apple authorized resellers are about as sure a thing as can be in business but even these b&m goldmines close shop and are left abandoned.

There weren’t any official Apple Stores before May 19th of 2001, only authorized Apple resellers ranging from Mom & Pop computer shops to big box retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City. The sign above hales from the 1980s (the “rainbow” Apple logo was used from 1977 to 1998) and towers over the Roberts Court strip mall on Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw, Georgia. According to Rebrn.com, the sign advertised Rick’s Educational Products and although that store moved many years ago, the sign lingered on for decades. The images above date from April 8th of 2011 and April 10th of 2011 respectively.

Later that month, something – most likely a weather-related event – twisted the top of the sign 180-degrees and shattered the plastic on both sides. A Reddit user who lives nearby fortuitously picked up some of the pieces as seen above. Not sure what his plans for them are but we hear pretty much anything sells on eBay these days.

Dublin Down

The number of Mac authorized resellers dropped by almost half between 1997 and 2000. Around that time Tim Cook, Apple’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations since 1998, announced the company would “cut some channel partners that may not be providing the buying experience (Apple expects). We’re not happy with everybody.” Perhaps the late and lamented Apple Centre on Kildare Street in Dublin, Ireland was one such partner that aroused Cook’s ire – no pun intended. Flickr user Fintan Palmer (fintanp) snapped the shuttered shop in October of 2008; fellow Flickrer twrbl noted no change in its abandoned status five months later.

Simply Closed

Simply Mac may have referred to itself as “the greatest Apple partner in North America” but according to a January 2017 announcement by the West Acres mall in Fargo, North Dakota, “Apple Corporation (is) ending its national agreement with Simply Mac to sell them Apple product, making it impossible for them to continue.” The Fargo store and the other depicted store in Billings, Montana are not the only Simply Mac stores closing and no doubt the signage pictured above will be coming down sooner than later.

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