Thinking Way Out of the Box

With an aerodynamic museum and a department store shaped like a spangled bean, Future Systems has put curves back on architecture's cutting edge

When you first step into the London offices of Future Systems, a converted warehouse in Notting Hill, you discover right away that this is an architectural practice that lives up to its name. All you have to do is look over the big glass display cases that line the office. They're filled with models of projects and proposals that have the kind of silhouettes you used to see in world's fair pavilions but just about nowhere else. Here's their Selfridges department store in Birmingham, England, a billowing form covered with silvery disks. Here's their upcoming museum for Maserati, the Italian car...

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