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One sought the eighth wonder of the world and achieved it,” proclaimed Tim Smit, founder of the groundbreaking biomes designed by Nicholas Grimshaw, who has died at 85. Within a Cornish china clay quarry, a group of geodesic domes resembling imposing soap bubbles house greenhouses hosting luxuriant plant eco-systems. Opened in 2000, it was one of Grimshaw’s boldest and innovative projects, appearing springing from the mind of a futurist writer rather than an architect.

Engineering Mastery and Traditional Inspiration

But however excitingly futuristic Grimshaw’s structures appeared, they were based by an passionate interest in mechanics and craft, and how historic precedents could be reimagined and adapted for the present day. Instead of using glass for the Eden Project’s domes, Grimshaw utilized ultra-lightweight foil cushions.

Transforming Rail Travel

When passenger rail services through the subsea passage first began running in 1994, the British end was signaled by a new global gateway at London’s Waterloo Station. Grimshaw conjured a innovative reinterpretation of the Victorian iron and glass train shed that his earlier architects would readily recognise. The idea for the roof’s irregular arched form, a design feat made all the more intricate by being curved on plan, was the framework of a human hand. Intricately connected to allow for the deflection caused by trains, a glazed roof vault enveloped platforms in a gracefully transparent shell. Beneath, a sleek, airport-style concourse whisked passengers up to the platform.

Though it experienced a forlorn period after Eurostar moved its operations to St Pancras in 2007, it has since been integrated back into the main station as part of a extensive upgrade, so that passengers heading for the suburban areas can experience the same frisson as those first Paris-bound travelers.

Enhancing Everyday Environments

High-technology architecture was often designed to appear at its best in a industrial, depopulated state, but Grimshaw’s work of stations, airports, trade fair halls, sports complexes and even the odd supermarket, refined and uplifted the daily experience of traveling or buying groceries.

Partly aircraft carrier, somewhat aircraft hangar, Sainsbury’s Camden superstore (1988) was a robust, steel structure that brought a touch of post-apocalyptic to the weekly shop. Grimshaw even designed a new kind of sloped conveyor that secured shopping trolleys to convey customers down to the underground car park. It was characteristic of his precision and trust in technology to solve the most mundane of problems.

Iconic Designs

Pioneering standout projects included Oxford Ice Rink (1984), a bold, unobstructed structure supported by a cat’s cradle of cables from two towering masts and covered in silver panels more typically used in cold stores. The Financial Times print works (1988) invigorated a bleak part of London’s terraforming Docklands by putting the ballet mécanique of newspaper production on display inside an immaculately engineered glass box. Pedestrians could watch the FT appear each day in a elaborately mechanical display of spinning machinery and pink newsprint.

International and Adaptable Architecture

Hired to design the British Pavilion for the 1992 Seville Expo, Grimshaw developed an graceful, modular structure crowned by a wavy cockscomb of solar panels. These supplied the energy to power a wall of water which provided relief for the pavilion and its visitors in Seville’s searing summer heat. The headquarters for the Western Morning News (1993) was envisioned as a futuristic ship in full sail on a hillside outside Plymouth, while in Berlin, the Ludwig Erhard Haus (1998), designed to accommodate the integrated city’s Chamber of Commerce, was supported from a ribcage of curved steel arches, hoisted into position as spectacularly as the timber frames of a ancient barn.

Heritage in Urban Development

Railway stations were a frequent theme. After the success of Waterloo, Grimshaw went on to revitalise London’s Paddington (1999), clearing layered modifications to expose the engineering power of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Latterly, towards the end of his career, his firm was given the herculean task of sorting out London Bridge, once described by John Betjeman as “the most complicated, confusing and inhospitable of all London termini”. Where there was dinginess and confusion there is now simplicity and connection, shown in a vast new concourse and a symphony of escalators and lifts. Even Betjeman might be able to orient himself.

Flexible Design for Evolving Needs

A further much larger London infrastructure project, the Elizabeth Line, won last year’s RIBA Stirling prize, co-won with design team collaborators Maynard, Equation and AtkinsRéalis. “Going down into the massive network of tunnels feels like accessing a gateway to the future, where the common commuter chaos is changed into an effortless experience,” said RIBA president Muyiwa Oki.

Grimshaw was always eager to point out that technology advances and circumstances change, but the trick is to produce architecture that is adaptable and adaptable. This was perhaps most persuasively demonstrated by the successful 2019 remodelling of the Herman Miller furniture factory to house the Bath Schools of Art and Design. Originally completed in 1976, when Grimshaw was in association with Terry Farrell, the quintessential slick industrial shed is now another kind of factory, an hub for the methods of creation, making, experimentation and learning, showing that buildings could – and should – have renewed relevance.