A plane crashed in a Missouri field on Sunday during a skydiving outing, killing all twelve people on board, officials said. Chad Anderson, the sheriff of Bates County, Missouri, told reporters that the plane crashed at roughly 11:30 a.m. CST, shortly after departing Butler Memorial Airport. The airport is roughly 60 miles outside of Kansas...
A plane crashed in a Missouri field on Sunday during a skydiving outing, killing all twelve people on board, officials said. Chad Anderson, the sheriff of Bates County, Missouri, told reporters that the plane crashed at roughly 11:30 a.m. CST, shortly after departing Butler Memorial Airport. The airport is roughly 60 miles outside of Kansas...
Panthalassa sees data centers powered and cooled by the ocean as a cheaper alternative to the orbiting server farms Musk is pitching to SpaceX investors.
Panthalassa sees data centers powered and cooled by the ocean as a cheaper alternative to the orbiting server farms Musk is pitching to SpaceX investors.
Home to some of London’s most iconic landmarks, the City of Westminster sees around 25 million of tourists every year. Add that number to residents and professionals who transit through central London daily, and we’re talking lots of people using the Underground, a.k.a. the Tube. Fortunately for travelers, eight stations are getting restroom upgrades with a big assist from Hugh Broughton Architects.
When the Victorians established the first underground train network in the mid-to-late 1800
Home to some of London’s most iconic landmarks, the City of Westminster sees around 25 million of tourists every year. Add that number to residents and professionals who transit through central London daily, and we’re talking lots of people using the Underground, a.k.a. the Tube. Fortunately for travelers, eight stations are getting restroom upgrades with a big assist from Hugh Broughton Architects.
When the Victorians established the first underground train network in the mid-to-late 1800s, they incorporated arched details and tile work that is preserved today, often augmented with contemporary nods to the city’s history and culture. Opened in 1863 along the Metropolitan Line, Baker Street is one of the oldest stations. In a design convention seen throughout the Underground, decorated tiles added later feature a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes—a tribute to the character’s fictional address on the station’s titular street.
Tile designs are richly embedded throughout the system. An architect named Leslie Green is known for a slew of deep red tile facades on more than a dozen central stations. Some interiors are covered practically top to bottom with the material, with the location names and “Way Out” signs made entirely from ceramic. Bethnal Green station features fantastic relief tiles of London icons, and a few years ago, a design student named Jeffrey Miller even repurposed the Tube’s own waste into Art Nouveau-style tiles modeled on historic versions.
Hugh Broughton Architects’ redesign continues this tradition, but it also serves the practical purpose of making these spaces safer, more inclusive, and more accessible. “There is a clear demand for public toilets across London, and many councils struggle with the costs surrounding maintenance and issues around antisocial behaviour,” says a statement. “To address this issue, the council is creating a series of inclusive facilities that demonstrate high-quality design and enshrine as much civic pride as the Victorians displayed when they first started looking at a proper sanitation system for the general public in the 19th century.”
The facilities at Victoria Embankment, Parliament Street, Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, Carnaby Street, Westminster Pier, Covent Garden, and Leicester Square are all getting vibrant makeovers. The tiles incorporate designs by artist and illustrator James Lambert, who interprets the distinctive character of each location through historical motifs and iconography. Among numerous playful references, you’ll find patterns consisting of the King’s Guards in their iconically tall, black, furry helmets and a tribute to George John Vulliamy’s giant sphinxes that guard Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment.
The restrooms are being refurbished in succession. Victoria Street opened in February 2025, followed by Parliament Street, and now Piccadilly Circus and Green Park. The next will be Carnaby Street and Westminster Bridge. Follow updates on the firm’s Instagram.
For millennia, humans have navigated seas, rivers, and oceans as avenues for trade, exploration, conquest, and colonization. During the Age of Discovery—an era interwoven with what’s known as the Age of Sail—European explorers and traders embarked on journeys around the world to map previously uncharted continents, trade commodities, and establish new socio-political outposts. Imperial forces competed with one another to control as much as they could, all in the name of wealth and power, and
For millennia, humans have navigated seas, rivers, and oceans as avenues for trade, exploration, conquest, and colonization. During the Age of Discovery—an era interwoven with what’s known as the Age of Sail—European explorers and traders embarked on journeys around the world to map previously uncharted continents, trade commodities, and establish new socio-political outposts. Imperial forces competed with one another to control as much as they could, all in the name of wealth and power, and individual landowners and traders profited immensely. But sustaining a presence in far-flung places would never have been remotely possible, nevertheless successful, without slavery.
Well into the 19th century, humans were transported through a vast slave network, with millions crammed aboard ships bound for various parts of Europe or North America. For London-based artist LR Vandy, the layered and often fraught legacies of labor, shipping, and trade undergird a distinctive sculptural practice.
“Spinning a Yarn” (2025). Photo by India Hobson
Vandy’s studio is based at Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent, where the history of wooden ships is alive and well. She uses materials such as Manila rope—a thick nautical rope made from the abaca plant, which is native to The Philippines—bobbers, navigation equipment, ship’s helms, hull-shaped wooden forms, and more, to explore the tangles of maritime history.
Vandy’s exhibition titled Rise, in The Weston Gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, marks the artist’s first solo museum show. Many of the works seen here are included in the show, while others represent earlier pieces. In her most recent work, the rope is a central focus as she explores its “entanglement in human history, its role in the development of civilisations, and its inextricable links to colonial enslavement of people,” says an exhibition statement. Everyday objects are repurposed and manipulated in an ongoing inquiry into process and materials, especially “drawing attention to the social, economic and political systems embedded within everyday objects.”
Anchoring the space at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a giant, rope-covered form evocative of a maypole, nodding to historic European folk traditions that celebrate community, ritual, and regeneration. Other objects appear to spin or sway, as if skirts are swishing or invisible players move through a series of games. “My practice centres the hidden human costs of colonialism, transportation systems and commodities, and the knotted histories of trade and power they contain,” Vandy says in a statement. “The title, Rise, references ideas of resilience, protest, liberation, and collective joy explored through rituals and dance.”
Rise continues through September 13 in Wakefield. If you go, also see Nicola Turner’s dramatic exhibition, Time’s Scythe. Learn more and plan your visit on the park’s website, and follow Vandy on Instagram for updates.
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