Systems Future

The London-based Future Systems firm was founded in 1979 by Jan Kaplicky, born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, who graduated from the College of Applied Arts and Architecture in Prague in 1962.
From 1968, Kaplicky worked in London with Denys Lasdun, Piano & Rogers, Spencer & Webster and Norman Foster. After professional practice with Alsop & Lyall, YRM Architects and Richard Rogers & Partners, in 1989 he opened his own practice in collaboration with Amanda Levete, born in Bridgend, Great Britain, in 1955, and qualified at the Architectural Association in London in 1982. Future Systems works in many parts of the world on architectural projects, urban furniture, interiors, industrial design and visual communication. Their work is strikingly innovative in its treatment of image and functional and technological research. Their large projects and completed works include: the visitor centre at Stonehenge, England (1992); Hauer-King House in London (1994), the Natwest Media Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground in London (1994-99), which won the RIBA Stirling Prize (2000), the British Construction Award (1999) and the Aluminium Imagination Award (1999), the floating footbridge linking Canary Wharf and West India Quay in London (1994-99), and the installations for the showrooms of the international fashion chain Comme des Garçons in New York, Tokyo and Paris.