Pop-Up Grocer Brings Wes Anderson Vibes to Miami, and Other News

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Pop-Up Grocer Brings Wes Anderson Vibes to Miami 

After stops in cities such as Brooklyn and Chicago, the roving experiential supermarket Pop-Up Grocer has landed in its next destination: Miami’s Wynwood Arts District. Founder and “chief eating officer” Emily Schildt enlisted a team of Magic City creatives to bring the latest iteration to life: designer Chaz Capobianco, florist and prop stylist Elizabeth Jaime, and muralist Brian Butler, who painted the facade in a colorful Miami motif. 

Inside, find whimsical color block displays inspired by 1980s postmodern architecture and stocked with a highly edited mix of health-forward artisanal brands with vibrant packaging. Look out for the artist-driven vegan cereal, Off Limits; the frozen plant-based treat, Dream Pops, a spiritual cousin to paleta; Couplet, a “douche-free” specialty coffee; and rare-ingredient, sparkling botanical tea Rishi; among 400 other next-wave products. Don’t leave without grabbing something fresh from local baker Fernanda Quintero’s special menu of baked goods. Pop-Up Grocer Miami is open through February 27. 

RISD students design space apparel that astronauts will wear on future missions. 

Students in RISD’s Apparel Design department are being given the chance to design articles of clothing for NASA astronauts. The course, called “Pack Your Bags! We’re Headed to the Moon,” is challenging students to “consider what articles of clothing would be functional, comfortable, sustainable, breathable, aesthetically pleasing, cleanable, and able to endure a 30-day mission to the moon,” says professor Catherine Andreozzi. The designs, which so far include extra-cushioned space socks and astronaut-grade athleisure, may potentially be worn by 18 astronauts on the mission Artemis, which is heading for the moon in 2025. 

New York’s Open Restaurants program is reviewing how to implement outdoor dining.

At the onset of the pandemic, restaurants across New York City opened outdoor dining structures that adhered to social distancing regulations. The concept took off, and the city’s Open Restaurants program is undergoing final review before officially launching next year. In the meantime, the Alfresco NYC Coalition—a group comprising the Design Trust for Public Space, the Regional Plan Association, and Tri-State Transportation Campaign—is reviewing designs for permanent outdoor dining structures that will help shape how the Open Restaurants program will be implemented. The New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which is managing the competition, is reviewing each entry based on civic engagement, quality of life, and technical criteria. When the program wraps up this spring, it will inform legal design parameters for permanent outdoor dining structures. 

The Louvre hosts a major conference to help combat the trafficking of cultural goods. 

Yesterday, the Musée du Louvre hosted a major global conference to define new proposals for the European Commission to adopt in the fight against the trafficking of cultural goods. Among the topics discussed were developing new technologies to track fraudulent artworks and how to educate the public about current efforts against archaeological looting, especially in the context of the digital age. Law enforcement authorities, specialists from UNESCO and the Aliph Foundation, and major art-market figures from Christie’s and the European Art Market Coalition all participated. 

Neri & Hu finish a Chinese whiskey distillery informed by the nearby Mount Emei.

Inspired by its natural surroundings of tree-lined mountains, terraced fields, and winding creeks in China’s Sichuan Province, the just-finished headquarters for the Chuan Malt Whisky Distillery is yet another in a long line of exquisite projects from Shanghai-based architecture studio Neri & Hu. With the spiritual Mount Emei, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, rising in the distance, the design balances elements of traditional Chinese architecture with modern geometric forms. On site: a restaurant and bar cantilevered over Liu Creek creek and five subterranean tasting rooms circumventing a momentous domed water feature. “Alongside a deep appreciation for the site’s natural resources, the project is also an embodiment of the refined sense of artistry embedded in whiskey-making and blending, which is in dialogue with Chinese traditional craftsmanship and appreciation of materials,” the studio states.     

Controversial public artwork for Brooklyn’s Abolitionist Place park gets approved.

New York City’s Public Design Commission has approved public artwork for Abolitionist Place, an under-construction park in Brooklyn that honors the abolitionist movement. The artwork, envisioned by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, incorporates messages of social justice into the park’s borders and benches. Activists and preservationists, however, are arguing that the artwork is too abstract in a city where few monuments honor Black people with statues. City officials have noted the plan to install Rasheed’s artwork isn’t final yet and is hosting online community engagement sessions this week to gauge the public’s input.

Today’s attractive distractions:

Kanye West wants you to leave him alone about the topic of making NFTs. 

The “crappy design” subreddit makes for a satisfying lunchtime hate scroll.

A Chinese YouTuber made a power bank that charges 5,000 smartphones.

Gucci is promoting its new bamboo bag with artwork instead of photoshoots.