Thomas

Thomas Heatherwick is one of the UK’s most prolific designers, whose varied work over two decades is characterised by its originality, inventiveness and humanity.

Defying conventional classifications, Thomas founded his studio in 1994 to bring together architecture, urban planning, product design and interiors into a single creative workspace. Working across multiple scales, locations and typologies, Heatherwick Studio has developed into a team of over 200 makers and inventors with no signature style. Led by human experience rather than any fixed dogma, the studio creates emotionally compelling places and objects with the smallest possible climate shadow.

From their base in London, the studio team is currently working on over 30 projects in ten countries, including Azabudai Hills, a six-hectare mixed-use development in the centre of Tokyo, the new headquarters for Google in London (in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group) and Airo, an electric car that cleans the air as it drives.

The studio has also recently completed Bay View, Google’s first ground-up campus and Little Island, a park and performance space on the Hudson River in New York as well as the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town; and Coal Drops Yard, a major new retail district in King’s Cross, London. Thomas’ new book, Humanise, was published by Penguin in October of this year.

Thomas has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize, and, in 2004, was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry. In202, Thomas was awarded the RIBA 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.