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Thomas Heatherwick, the British designer celebrated for his fresh innovations across the creative spectrum, is just as comfortable dreaming up architecture, furniture, and products as he is working with transport, engineering, and urban planning.
By Danielle Demetriou
Heatherwick represented the UK with his Seed Cathedral at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, its seed-containing rods a response to the fair’s theme of Better City, Better Life. Image by Iwan Baan
Heatherwick represented the UK with his Seed Cathedral at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, its seed-containing rods a response to the fair’s theme of Better City, Better Life. Image by Iwan Baan
I’m fascinated by how you can have urban density but also an intense quality of life
Curiosity, innovation, and an intuitive sensitivity to modern living have underscored much of Thomas Heatherwick’s work since he launched his studio in 1994 after studying 3D design. Today, Heatherwick Studio — which he recently described as a “giant mutated version of my bedroom when I was about nine years old” — has around 230 team members working between five spaces in King’s Cross, plus small teams in Shanghai and California, where they’re working on the new Google campus with Bjarke Ingels’s firm BIG.
Heatherwick captured the design world’s attention early with his Rolling Bridge in London in 2005, uniquely designed with eight triangular sections that curl up for passing boats. Two years later, he completed his first permanent building, East Beach Cafe in the English seaside town of Littlehampton, a seafront structure wrapped in shell-like ribbons of earthy steel.
The converted Victorian warehouses of Coal Drops Yard are topped by a pair of steel, glass, and wood roofs that form a light-filled atrium inside. Images by Hufton + Crow
The converted Victorian warehouses of Coal Drops Yard are topped by a pair of steel, glass, and wood roofs that form a light-filled atrium inside. Images by Hufton + Crow
Since then, he’s drawn attention around the world with the diversity of his creations: the exquisitely ethereal Seed Cathedral for the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, its 60,000 fiber optic rods containing plant seeds at their tips; the first redesign in several decades of London’s iconic Routemaster buses; the 204 flaming stems of the Olympic Cauldron for London’s 2012 games; and the converted Victorian warehouses of retail complex Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross.
Meanwhile, wellness lies at the heart of his recently completed Maggie’s Centre for cancer patients on the grounds of St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, a lush plant-shrouded structure with organically curved timber interiors.
The whimsical, organic shapes of Maggie’s Centre in Leeds resemble mushrooms sprouting from the ground, while the timber walls and ceilings inside mimic the fungus’s gills. Images by Hufton + Crow
The whimsical, organic shapes of Maggie’s Centre in Leeds resemble mushrooms sprouting from the ground, while the timber walls and ceilings inside mimic the fungus’s gills. Images by Hufton + Crow
Urban living on a human scale is a key theme for Heatherwick, alongside explorations into the power of horticulture and the quest for a modern-day antidote to homogeneous city planning. “I’m fascinated by how you can have urban density but also an intense quality of life,” he says. “In the past, maybe thirty or forty years ago, there was this idea that the city was a dense, unpleasant thing — you lived somewhere else and commuted to that horrible place to work and then went back to the nice place to live.”
Heatherwick’s idea of the future is different: “I think there’s a new model evolving that’s saying work needs to be more meaningful and the places where you work have to have some connection with your life,” he continues. “Living and working should be more closely connected.”
The converted Victorian warehouses of Coal Drops Yard are topped by a pair of steel, glass, and wood roofs that form a light-filled atrium inside. Images by Hufton + Crow
The converted Victorian warehouses of Coal Drops Yard are topped by a pair of steel, glass, and wood roofs that form a light-filled atrium inside. Images by Hufton + Crow
These issues are tackled head-on with several in-progress projects. Among them is the Toranomon-Azabudai Project in Tokyo, an ambitious urban regeneration project by Mori Building, complete with a rolling, undulating structure covered in a grid-like planted pergola that resembles what Heatherwick describes as a “latticed tablecloth”. Another is 1000 Trees in Shanghai (the first part tentatively due to open this year), alongside the city’s M50 arts district, where two green “mountains” house a mix of offices, shops, restaurants, and galleries.
Trees in Shanghai is set to be a mixed-use development that reflects Heatherwick’s approach to urban living. Image by Qinyan Zhu
Trees in Shanghai is set to be a mixed-use development that reflects Heatherwick’s approach to urban living. Image by Qinyan Zhu
“It’s so disappointing when you go somewhere and it’s just another version of another place,” he says. “I think the challenge is that the forces of globalization make cities more and more similar.”
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