The design proposed by Spain's foremost architect won the approval of the panel of judges comprised of editors and writers at The New York Times Magazine including Herbert Muschamp, Michael Kimmelman, Roberta Smith, Stephen Mihm, Jack Rosenthal, David Shipley, Michael Pollan, Jack Hitt, Pilar Viladas, Joele Cuyler, Janet Froelich, and Camille Sweeney. Calatrava, known internationally as a designer of bridges and public buildings, is also a sculptor. He has described his capsule as a flower. The Calatrava design (pictured above) is derived from a series of sculptures that explores the formal properties of folded spherical frames. His design comprises the basic forms of line, circle, and square. The form of the capsule can be sliced through horizontally, forming two halves, and then quartered. The four top segments are hinged to the bottom four, allowing them to open and close. The cavities of the segments are hollow and the eight compartments together contain about 50 cubic feet of storage space, a great deal of which will be filled with Nanogel, vacuum insulation panels that will protect the contents placed inside the capsule.

The Times Capsule was constructed at A.R.T. Design in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, using the ancient "lost-wax" process. This multistep technique involves creating a series of molds and models of different materials, culminating in a final stainless steel cast of the eight-unit capsule.

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