a casual observer could be forgiven for wondering how Thomas Heatherwick has developed such a reputation among architects. An analysis of the works of Heatherwick Studio reveals relatively few completed buildings, and many of those who are in the list are small projects: stands, retail interiors, cafes. Indeed, for the average Londoner, he is probably best known as the designer of the new tribute to the iconic bus red Routemaster and as the creator of the popular cauldron for the London 2012 Olympics - both released in a year when Heatherwick all but officially became the designer approved by the state of 21st century Britain.
A look at Heatherwick Studio website sheds some light on this puzzle. With separate projects into "small", "medium" and "large", it is clear that the increase in the scale is reflected by an increase in time, with a large number of smaller projects completed in the early years of Studio, and most of those "great" category either recently completed or (more often) still on the drawing board. Their most recent project is also one of their biggest, a "learning hub" for the Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. How a design studio that made its name in small projects fit on such a scale? ArchDaily spoke to Thomas Heatherwick on the Hub learning and growing size of its projects to find out.
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despite learning Hub larger scale, the memory for the building was far from luxurious. "We had a budget that was little more than a parking lot - he was modest," says Heatherwick. "This means that to achieve the highest possible environmental performance for buildings, and to meet the codes of constructability in Singapore, there was only one material that could be used for columns, floors, them, cores and coating - and that was to use concrete "
" When you say "concrete" that many times, "he adds, a Northern European. gets "a kind of sinking feeling in the stomach. the associations with cold gray masses of material that are problematic." It also describes how in 1986 Kenzo Tange masterplan which provides the context for the construction famous "ladder", with " elevations very long, very long corridors and walkways, very long pieces of glass. "
in the 21st century, such a celebration of scale is more appropriate for a university, Heatherwick is claims. a "radical change in pedagogy," with students able to do much of their work online, means that one of the most important things for a new university building can provide is a space for informal conversations, where students can meet new people and discuss ideas.
"We were trying to focus again on the human scale," he said. As such, the 57 classrooms are arranged in 12 laps separated in which "each individual tower is no bigger than a terraced house in the plan, but they come together to do a lot of nooks and crannies between them in the connected circulation, where ambiguous, informal conversations can take place. "
So far, then, a very well driven approach to architect standard playbook. But he is discussing their approach to neutralize these "cold gray masses" of concrete Heatherwick really shows the advantages of its multi-scale approach to design.
"to some extent the project was like a clay project, trying to really enjoy the use of concrete as clay, "he said - an approach introduced in the conditions of the creation of the building, where not only the money but also time were in short supply. "We needed something that worked with what Singapore entrepreneurs knew how to do, and can almost go straight with it."
But the approach is more than just efficient. "epiphany for us in the process was very concrete in a very traditional way often with concrete, there is so much emphasis put on the fair-face concrete and try to make flat, perfectly spotless. with the ceramic we often appreciate things with imperfections and natural oddities of the manufacturing process. "
In the Learning Hub, Heatherwick studio ample opportunity for that. The columns of the building are coated with silicone molds adjustable to give them reason for corrugated surface, and the walls of circulation elements are cast with 700 drawings that overlap by illustrator Sara Fanelli. As Heatherwick explains, "there was an inch of love in the surface of the concrete."
for Heatherwick, the learning Hub is at least partly a giant ceramic work piece, a pot in which other architectural ideas, more classics can be placed. This sense of scale agnosticism seems to permeate his thought: ". Hand-held "twice in our conversation, he refers to the entire building as a" device ", a word these days is usually seen prefixed with
when I ask how his studio is able to maintain their creativity fame, even when working on more constrained projects Heatherwick explains. 'within the large-scale use of small-scale even if you work on a master plan for a part of town, you will probably not think that large scale if you are not as aware of the human impact on the scale of the average person. "
with projects like Pier55 in New York, Al Fayah Park Abu Dhabi, and of course the recently announced Google Campus still under construction, the increasing size of Heatherwick studio projects is far reaching a conclusion. In the coming years, this wide approach will be tested repeatedly; the results could well be instructive to the entire profession.
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