Sustainability Lecture - Humanising our cities

Inaugural Sustainability Lecture: Humanising our Cities

Abstract

How can we make our cities more human and provide a more sustainable future? Is emotion the crucial ingredient that is missing in so much of design today? If buildings are designed more mindfully, might fewer buildings be demolished?

About the Speaker:

Thomas Heatherwick
Founder

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 200 makers and inventors with no signature style. Lead by human experience rather than any fixed dogma, the studio creates emotionally compelling places and objects with the smallest possible climate shadow.

From their studios in London and Shanghai, the team is currently working on over 30 projects in ten countries, including Seoul’s Nodeul Island, the new Changi Airport Terminal 5 with KPF, the new headquarters for Google in London in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group, and a performing arts centre in Hainan.

The studio has also recently completed Azabudai Hills, a six-hectare mixed-use development in the centre of Tokyo; Bay View and Gradient Canopy, Google’s first purpose-built campuses in California; 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 retail district in London.

Thomas has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Royal Academician and in 2004 became the youngest Royal Designer for Industry. Thomas’ book, Humanise, was published by Penguin in October 2023.