The Future.

Permanently moored among the docks of London’s Canary Wharf, the futuristic Foster + Partners designed Crossrail Place is a long, tubular structure containing one of nine new railway stations for London’s East-West Rail network, as well as a shopping centre and a public park. In all, the enormous, ship-like building includes more than 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 45,000 square feet of green space across seven stories, four submerged underwater.

Topped by an arched lattice roof with a tessellated ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) skin that responds to climatic conditions in real time, the futuristic form and materiality of Crossrail Place are a direct response to the area’s maritime history with its barrel vault of crisscrossing glulam spruce and billowing, triangular ETFE cushions recalling the wooden clippers that once docked in this part of the city.

Reminded me of my childhood watching Space 1999 on TV.