Thomas Heatherwick is founder of the Heatherwick Studio and considered to be
one of Britain's most gifted and imaginative designers. He is well known for
many high profile national projects such as the Olympic Cauldron and the New
Bus for London and was awarded a CBE in 2013 for his services to the design
industryThomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. Since the late 1990s Heatherwick has emerged as one of Britain’s most gifted and imaginative designers. His innovative approach to design has earned him a reputation as an "ideas engine".
Since 2010 Heatherwick has exhibited a knack for projects that are intimately connected to a sense of national or local identity. These include the Olympic Cauldron, the New Routemaster bus, the first new double decker bus commissioned for London in 50 years, and the UK pavilion at Expo 2010. Other notable works include the Garden Bridge, the renovation of Pacific Place, and a plan for a biomass power station in BEI-Teesside.
Heatherwick works with a team of over 150 architects, designers and makers from a combined studio and workshop in King’s Cross, London.
After graduating from the RCA Heatherwick founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994. The studio is known for its profound commitment to elegant, integrated design solutions and the absolute dedication to materials, research, prototyping, industrial collaboration, tactility, texture - and extraordinary form-making.
Since being founded, the studio has worked with an extensive range of design disciplines, including architecture, engineering, transport and urban planning to furniture, sculpture and product design. The wide range of skill sets found at Heatherwick Studio is a reaction to Heatherwick’s frustration at encountering "sliced-up ghettos of thought" of sculpture, architecture, fashion, embroidery, metalwork, product and furniture design all in separate departments. He considers all design in three dimensions, not as multi-disciplinary design, but as a single discipline: three-dimensional design.
Unlike many architecture practices, Heatherwick Studio does not have a fixed style and focuses on problem solving. He has said: “It is more like solving a crime. The answer is there, and your job is to find it. So we go off and do bits of research that essentially eliminate suspects from the enquiry. And then you follow up leads and gradually narrow down the potential solutions. Ultimately what you’re left with is the answer.”
In 2012, Thames and Hudson published Thomas Heatherwick: Making. The book lays out Heatherwick's inventive body of work so far, each of the more than 140 fully illustrated projects included is accompanied by a text explaining, in Heatherwick’s words, the design question it posed and the creative and practical processes used to address it. The book was an instant sellout on first publication; a second volume was released in 2013 that includes the Olympic Cauldron.
As of July 2013, he is designing, in collaboration with the actress Joanna Lumley a pedestrian bridge across the Thames in London, "Garden Bridge". This is planned to feature trees and gardens.
Heatherwick Studio
Established by Thomas Heatherwick in 1994, Heatherwick Studio is recognised for its work in architecture, urban infrastructure, sculpture, design and strategic thinking. Today a team of 160, including architects, designers and makers work from a combined studio and workshop in Kings Cross, London.
At the heart of the studio’s work is a profound commitment to finding innovative design solutions, with a dedication to artistic thinking and the latent potential of materials and craftsmanship. This is achieved through a working methodology of collaborative rational inquiry, undertaken in a spirit of curiosity and experimentation.
In the twenty years of its existence, Heatherwick Studio has worked in many countries, with a wide range of commissioners and in a variety of regulatory environments. Through this experience, the studio has acquired a high level of expertise in the design and realisation of unusual projects, with a particular focus on the large scale.
The studio’s work includes a number of nationally significant projects for the UK, including the award-winning UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, the Olympic Cauldron for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and the New Bus for London.
Thomas is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; a Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum; and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Royal College of Art, University of Dundee, University of Brighton, Sheffield Hallam University and University of Manchester.
He has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize, and, in 2004, was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry. In 2010, Thomas was awarded the RIBA’s Lubetkin Prize and the London Design Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to design.
In 2013 Thomas was awarded a CBE for his services to the design industry.