Good afternoon and welcome back to another news roundup to start the week off.

Here’s what you need to know:

BIG designs a digital headquarters for Vice Media Group

The promise of the metaverse is one of unconstrained creativity and the potential to build anything in a digital environment, but so far, much of what has been realized are iterations on real-world typologies. The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is hoping to shake that up with the reveal of a digital office tower for Vice Media Group on the Decentraland platform (one of many metaverse purveyors, the term has no centralized “world.”)

Dubbed Viceverse, the tower is wrapped in bands and run through with tunnels that lend it the appearance more of a parametrically designed Zaha Hadid Architects tower, and multiple floors can be accessed through the “tunnel.” Each floor can be easily reconfigured to act as testing grounds for digital creation and NFT deployment and give Vice a foothold for first-person reporting inside of Decentraland.

H/t to Dezeen

A car crash and explosion destroyed a Prospect Park memorial

Yesterday, March 6, a speeding driver in a white BMW jumped the curb and slammed their car into Prospect Park’s Bartel-Pritchard Square, causing an explosion that toppled a historic war memorial. Erected in 1965 in remembrance of those who lost their lives in World War I, the granite slab, emblazoned with the phrase “For Valor and Sacrifice,” currently remains chipped and on its side while the plaza has been covered in debris and oil.

A maniacally reckless driver destroyed the monument at Bartel Pritchard Square this morning.

We passed the Reckless Driver Accountability Act in 2020 to start building a policy response to the epidemic of reckless driving. But it’s only gotten worse.https://t.co/J2B3vlR92t

— Brad Lander (@bradlander) March 6, 2022

H/t to Gothamist

David Adjaye will design a Manhattan exhibition of rarely seen Basquiat work

David Adjaye has been tapped to design a forthcoming exhibition of rare and never seen Jean-Michel Basquiat artwork that will go on display in Manhattan beginning April 9 in West Chelsea. Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure will run at the iconic Starrett-Lehigh Building and put more than 200 paintings and artifacts on view as well as life-sized recreations of Basquiat’s former studio and the VIP room of the Palladium nightclub.

H/t to New York YIMBY

The Sackler family reaches an agreement to allow museums to remove their name

The Sackler family has reportedly reached an agreement to settle the numerous civil lawsuits they face for their role in the opioid epidemic, including allowing any institution to remove the family’s name if they give 45 days notice and don’t disparage the Sacklers. The Serpentine Gallery and Metropolitan Museum of Art have already removed the name from some of their most popular wings, and this agreement, filed on March 3 in New York court, will likely lead to a flood of similar removals.

H/t to Artnet News

A Barbara Stauffacher Solomon show of supergraphics is on view at the Graham Foundation

Now on view at the Graham Foundation in Chicago through July 9, Exits Exist drills down on artist Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s Sea Ranch supergraphics, new exhibition-specific sculptures, books, and wall-mounted paintings and murals. Exits Exist was originally planned for the spring of 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic and was realized through Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s Graham Foundation Fellowship.

IKEA closes all of its stores in Russia and Belarus

Inter IKEA Group, the umbrella company that oversees the various IKEA franchises, is the latest company to speak out over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On March 3, the company announced that it has paused all operations in Russia, stopped imports and exports to and from Russia and Belarus, and halted all production in Russia. The IKEA Foundation has also donated $21.71 million (€20 million) towards humanitarian aid for displaced Ukrainians, and the Inter IKEA Group and Ingka Group have donated an additional $10.85 million (€10 million) towards providing products to organizations working in war-affected areas.