Thomas Heatherwick: Capturing Emotions
Thomas Heatherwick: Capturing Emotions
“Emotions are a very important element that makes architecture meaningful. The emotions embedded in architecture lift people’s spirits and form a connection between people. The emotional impact of architecture on us is enormous – Thomas Heather Wick."
“Thomas Heatherwick” is considered to be one of the most notable and genius designers among contemporary British designers, to the point where he is nicknamed ‘Britain’s Da Vinci.’ As one of the world's most prolific designers, he has created 'Heather Wick'-like works that combine his unrivaled genius and passionate humanity through his diverse work over the past 20 years. Thomas Heatherwick founded “Heatherwick Studio” in 1994 to create more creative work that crosses all boundaries, including urban planning, architecture, interior design, and product design. Headquartered in King's Cross, London, we employ around 200 architects, designers, craftsmen and technicians.
Heatherwick's architectural world, which has a special approach to incorporating human emotions and soul into architecture, can be understood through the environment and background in which he grew up. Having played with counting and touching beads since he was a child living alongside his mother, who worked at a bead shop in London, he was always interested in small-scale making, crafts, and inventions as well as materials. was exposed. This growing environment allowed him to feel for himself that soulfulness was possible through materiality and making. At the same time, on the contrary, it was evident in the large-scale buildings and printed materials he saw and experienced around him. It serves as an opportunity to realize that the buildings being built feel somewhat soulless, yet cold and lacking in emotion. Through this, Heatherwick came to have his own firm philosophy that the very essential element called emotions should never be overlooked in the design of buildings. Based on this, Heatherwick has developed his own unique design style and unique architectural world view. It is believed that it has been done.
When I first encountered Heatherwick’s ‘Rolling Bridge’ in a book at the library, I still vividly remember being so surprised and impressed by the simple, creative, and smart mechanism of a bridge of a type I had never seen before.
It is said that the design of the Rolling Bridge began with the question, ‘What mechanism would this bridge operate under?’ rather than ‘What would this bridge look like?’ Numerous bridges in London have an opening function in which the middle part of the bridge opens and closes to create a passage for ships passing under the bridge. The opening mechanism of numerous bridges seen from Heatherwick's perspective is emotions, the completely beautiful appearance of the bridge itself disappeared and the bridge seemed to snap in the middle and split in two. Therefore, Heatherwick focused on creating a bridge that was different from this and opened more naturally and beautifully. As a result, we designed a bridge with an impressive opening mechanism, as shown in the photo above. In his words, it is ‘a mechanism where the two farthest end points of a rolling bridge kiss each other.’
The UK pavilion at the Shanghai Expo (2010) is also called “the SEED CATHEDRAL”. This project is a work that has greatly contributed to promoting designer Thomas Heatherwick and his studio around the world. At the request of the British government at the time, Heatherwick Studio had to design an impressive British pavilion to represent the country on a football stadium-sized site with half the budget of other Western countries. As the scale of the challenge was enormous in many ways, the design began with fun and original inspirations and ideas in a more ‘Heatherwick’ style. At the world's first major botanical museum in London, a special project was underway to collect 25% of the world's plant species. Heatherwick was inspired by this and decided to create a very British project linked to the botanical garden's project. Everyone likes trees and flowers, but no one says they like seeds. So, with his unique philosophy and vision, Heatherwick decided to create a kind of seed cathedral, a space where these small seeds that no one sees can be displayed. I started thinking about how to show these seeds, which are the source of everyone's favorite flowers and trees, but are not visible to the public because they are very small, and then I saw the DNA of a dinosaur trapped in amber in the movie "Jurassic Park." Get ideas for ways to display your seeds in a valuable and beautiful way.
Another source of ‘Heatherwick’-like ideas was the children’s toys shown in the photo on the left.The hint was the numerous hairs on the doll that were pulled out like noodles at the same time. What was born through this were the so-called seed-bearing acrylic optical rods, which are the main elements of the Seed Cathedral architecture.
These are hairs (transparent optic rods). These 7.5-meter-long transparent acrylic rod-shaped hairs, each with a seed at each end, were installed as if extending from the inside of the pavilion through the wall to the outside. While it serves to display seeds indoors, outdoors it is an organic shape that moves when the wind blows. The principle is to trap 66,000 seeds in 60,000 precious optical hairs and let them grow through this rectangular box. When the wind blows, everything moves smoothly, and through the acrylic rod hairs, outside light is transmitted into the interior during the day, and artificial light is contained at night, which serves as lighting.
With a ‘Thomas Heatherwick’-like design that emphasizes materiality and texture, this seed cathedral was a great success at the Shanghai Expo. As the budget for this project was small, the British Pavilion was designed to focus energy on the Seed Cathedral and leave the other spaces empty without any additional buildings or content, and this emptying design was also successful. As shown in the photo below, the vast empty spaces other than the Seed Cathedral played a major role as public spaces used by one million people per day during the Expo.
There are many other works by Heatherwick. We currently have more than 30 projects in 10 countries, including Toranomon-Azabudai, a 6-hectare mixed-use development in central Tokyo that just concluded, the new Google headquarters in London, and the design of Airo, an electric car that purifies the air as you drive. It's in progress. It also recently opened Google's first land-based campus, Bay View, (Little Island), a park and performance space on the Hudson River in New York, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, and Coal Drops Yard, (a major new retail district in London's King's Cross. ), etc., is realizing his philosophy around the world with ceaseless passion.
Thomas Heatherwick rejects existing classifications, prioritizes human experience rather than fixed doctrines or theoretical approaches, and creates spaces, buildings, and attractive places that reach people emotionally while minimizing carbon footprints. I want to make things. Among the numerous projects with diverse new attempts and approaches, some works sometimes arouse controversy, but the passion and heart of Heatherwick, 'Britain's Leonardo da Vinci', who embodies sensibility and sincere consideration for people in practicality, is always focused on people. It is facing ‘Human’.
- Lee Joo-ho (expert) -
