Archinect - News

Heatherwick Studio opens ceramics-rich Xi’an CCBD development in China

2024-12-18T16:08:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has updated the new Xi’an Centre Culture Business District upon its first public opening after sharing details of the project with Archinect last November.

The development occupies space between the ruins of the Temple of Heaven and the famed Shaanxi TV Tower. Central to its design is the artistic heritage of ceramics in the region. A nod to the historical presence of the Terracotta Army can be seen in the exterior tiled cladding on each of its buildings’ facades.

Photo credit: Qingyan Zhu

This confers an inviting tactile impression that will further lure its users. The studio’s founder, Thomas Heatherwick, says it also results in an "unexpected three-dimensional urban landscape" equalling 155,000 square meters (or more than 1.6 million square feet).

Photo credit: Qingyan Zhu

Within its pedestrian-centric "sensory experience" comprised of a retail podium, offices, a hotel, and apartments, activity converges around a central plaza with a 187-foot high vertical park ...

The Vessel reopens with improved safety barriers after three years

2024-10-21T16:55:00-04:00

CBS News is reporting on the re-opening of The Vessel at Hudson Yards after closing abruptly in January of 2021 in response to a rash of suicides.

The Vessel now includes expanded safety measures, with steel mesh barriers installed on four stairwells and adjoining platforms. These barriers are designed to prevent further tragedies while maintaining the structure’s iconic appearance and panoramic views. The first two levels will be fully accessible to visitors, while only sections with added barriers will be open on higher floors. The topmost floor will remain closed to the public, marking a significant shift in visitor access aimed at enhancing safety.

The Vessel was an instant architectural icon when the honeycombed structure opened in 2019 on the west side of Manhattan. But after a number of people died by suicide there, it was shut down for nearly 1,200 days until now. https://t.co/UgszqwYQOB pic.twitter.com/o60jOONtdr
— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) October 21, 2024

Video source @...

Heatherwick details reimagined Sunset Place retail center in Miami

2024-08-23T11:58:00-04:00

A hyperlocal strategy and refinement of the site’s relationship with the street-level and corresponding parts of Midtown will be the defining features of Heatherwick Studios’ planned Sunset Place retail regeneration project in Miami.

The plan was put forth in detail via a 5-minute Instagram video this week. Heatherwick says: “Our idea is to get rid of the sterile atmosphere of the previous shopping mall and bring back streets influenced by the scale and charm of Sunset Drive. The plan is to extend the existing grid into the site and create continuous routes and a village of smaller, intimate spaces, framed in an extraordinary way by the apartments above.”

His newest humanizing design joins other newly announced mixed-use and retail projects from Kengo Kuma and David Chipperfield. No construction timelines for the project have been made available at this time.

Heatherwick Studio proposes hourglass-shaped volumes for Seoul shopping center

2024-08-02T14:35:00-04:00

Another mixed-use retail project from Heatherwick Studio is coming to Seoul. The newly announced Hanwha Galleria project covers an existing metro subway station with a glass atrium and two landscaped plaza areas. Two asymmetrical glass volumes resembling hourglass forms and containing gardened areas conceal its program. According to the firm's project description, the structures come sheathed in a double-skinned facade that can be programmed for nighttime projections.

Neil Hubbard, partner and group leader at Heatherwick studio, described: "Traditionally, department stores are quite inward facing, they feel closed off to the surrounding streets. But here we have an important intersection in Apgujeong with two buildings, east and west, that felt like an opportunity to bring people together."

Local studio Haeahn Architecture will collaborate on its design.

Image: Devisual, courtesy Heatherwick Studio

The project’s announcement follows Thomas Heatherwick being named as General Director...

Thomas Heatherwick to direct 2025 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism

2024-06-03T19:10:00-04:00

South Korea's Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism just announced that Thomas Heatherwick will be the General Director of its fifth iteration next year.

Billed as Asia's biggest architecture biennial, the 2025 program seeks to explore "how to make buildings and cities radically more joyful and engaging," a mantra Heatherwick has been championing with his Humanise campaign.

"We are honored and thrilled by this appointment to curate our first Biennale," Heatherwick responded. "There are over 300 biennales taking place around the world today. But the original ambition to use them as vehicles for debate and engagement with the public, too easily gets lost in professional echo-chambers, which most ordinary people don’t engage with."

"We plan to turn the concept of a biennale inside out and create a big, full-throttle conversation with Seoulites. We want to get to the heart of what matter...

Heatherwick's 'Humanise' campaign inspires 'joyful' architecture degree at UK university

2024-05-15T18:01:00-04:00

The UK’s Loughborough University has accepted Thomas Heatherwick's challenge to ‘humanize’ and create ‘joyful’ architecture with a new academic offering: A master's degree aiming to give students the opportunity to take part in a burgeoning movement created to solve a global “urban crisis” over the next decade. The 115-year-old university will become the first to affiliate itself with the Humanise campaign academically with new supplementary course content exclusive to its new Master of Architecture & Design program.

Courses will leverage research into architecture, neuroscience, and human psychology in accord with Heatherwick’s philosophy of design, which was recently the subject of a new treatise of the same title. The program's official launch is slated for the fall of 2025 and includes a series of lectures and workshops exploring the idea of emotion as a function of design, an announcement from the university read Tuesday.

Dr Robert Schmidt III of the School of Architecture, Bui...

The Vessel to reopen with improved safety measures

2024-04-15T11:44:00-04:00

The Vessel has announced it will again be open to visitors in New York City later this year after upgraded anti-suicide safety measures are installed in response to a spate of tragedies that have befallen its existence since being inaugurated in March of 2019. The attraction has been closed since 2021 and will reopen with its uppermost level kept inaccessible to the public.

The New York Times reported a representative from Related Companies, which manages the Thomas Heatherwick-designed property, as saying a “floor-to-ceiling steel mesh” barrier would be installed. It will replace existing barriers that were only waste-high and not "cut-proof," as the new fencing is understood to be made.

"While we think it took Related four lives too many to make these physical adjustments, these are the changes we requested, which will allow for prioritizing the safety of everyone who visits the Vessel," Manhattan Communit...

Heatherwick Studio previews first South American project in Bogotá, Colombia

2024-03-21T16:45:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has made public details of a new project in Bogotá, Colombia, for a client in the higher education industry. The studio’s first South American design will be realized as a seven-story academic building and makerspace with a uniquely colorful facade composed of setbacks, free columns, planting, and small circular outdoor terraces.

The client is Bogotá’s Universidad Ean Design School, a 56-year-old private institution founded to provide "comprehensive training of people and stimulate their entrepreneurial aptitude so that its action contributes to the economic and social development of people."

Image: Heatherwick Studio/NOD

Traditional Werregue basket-making practices serve as the inspirations for the design, tipping off Heatherwick’s war on blandness and desire to elevate craft into a primary role in his building practice.

This homage to Colombia's Wounaan Indigenous community will serve as the new centerpiece of the campus, complementing the architecture of the su...

Rowan Moore declares an aversion to Heatherwick’s London BT Tower hospitality makeover

2024-02-27T20:05:00-05:00

Its sale, for £275m, by BT to a hotel group, if it gives the tower a secure future, is welcome. I’m more troubled by the reports that the designer Thomas Heatherwick is to “repurpose” the building. His past work shows that he’s not one to leave well alone, but rather festoon structures with over-sized flower-pots and look-at-me swirling shapes. One can only hope that he discovers some restraint. The BT Tower is already an icon. It’s perfect. Let it be.

Readers will remember the critic's jabs at Heatherwick last fall after the publication of his new treatise on architecture and mental health, wherein Moore declared “an outbreak of shallow wannabe Gaudís” will follow in tow should the call-to-action be adopted.

That provocation isn't the first or even second time Moore has harshed the Vessel designer's creative schemes for the capital. In its defense, Heatherwick Studio has yet to detail any of the architectural extravagances Moore is lamenting after the project's February 22nd announcement.

Previously on Archinect: London’s BT Tower to be converted into a hotel by Heatherwick following MCR purchase

The conservation group C20 Society has offered its support for the £275 million project. If history is any guide, MCR's previous re-use of the TWA Hotel at JFK should steer the project away from any gauche gesturing and towards the Swinging London era anachronisms Moore champions nostalgically as "hopeful futurism."

...

London’s BT Tower to be converted into a hotel by Heatherwick following MCR purchase

2024-02-22T11:39:00-05:00

London’s iconic BT Tower is to be purchased by U.S. hotel owner-operator MCR. Partnering with Heatherwick Studio, the company is to explore the tower’s adaptive reuse as a hotel.

Standing at 620 feet in height, the BT Tower is one of London’s tallest buildings. Opened in 1965, the tower is covered by a Grade II historical importance listing, though such a listing does not prohibit a change of use within the building.

MCR has noted that the tower will not undergo any immediate changes, with current owners BT Group expected to take several years to vacate the premises due to the complexity involved in moving technical equipment. The design process is also expected to include time for community engagement in advance of the proposal’s reveal.

Related on Archinect:The TWA Hotel at JFK is officially open. Photo courtesy of TWA Hotel/David Mitchell

MCR was previously known for its overhaul of the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport which has since become the TWA Hotel. T...

Heatherwick's Azabudai Hills mixed-use development opens in Tokyo

2023-11-29T14:25:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has released a new batch of project images along with an announcement of the long-awaited completion of their Azabudai Hills mixed-use district in Tokyo.

The multi-billion dollar project for Mori Building Co. Ltd. culminates a 30-year regeneration process in the heart of the city’s Minato ward with a new 20-acre design that features two temples, office and retail components, residential buildings, a school, and 5.9 acres of open green space for public use.

Image: Raquel Diniz

In a press announcement, Neil Hubbard, partner and Group Leader at Heatherwick Studio, said: “Over the last 10 years, we have tried to get under the skin of what makes something distinctively Tokyo, whilst at the same time, adding something new that’s fresh and soft to its modern built environment. We wanted to create vistas full of variety and intrigue and spaces to explore. It’s a confluence of different families of design all brought together in one place. I can’t wait to watch people explo...

Heatherwick Studio's new Xi'an shopping district features ceramic paneling as 'sensory experience'

2023-11-20T12:16:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has announced their design for a new shopping center in Xi’an, China, they say will evoke the heritage of ceramics and other artistic creations endemic to the area with a completion date set for 2024.

Offering users a “sensory experience to challenge the emotional and aesthetic deprivation of online shopping,” the plan for the 1.23 million-square-foot district calls for a network of social spaces and interlocking program of mixed-scale buildings scattered throughout.

Image: MIR, courtesy of Heatherwick Studio

The design is broken down into three scales, appearing first as a green space with tapering rooflines inspired by surrounding local temples when viewed from a distance. At the street level, it will utilize a series of interlinked terraces and other landscaped spaces to offer enhanced pedestrianism and vistas of the city.

Image: Devisual, courtesy of Heatherwick Studio

The promised “sensory experience” is enacted most at the final human scale, and buildings are...

Thomas Heatherwick wants architects to improve mental health through 'interestingness'

2023-10-23T19:02:00-04:00

Boring, soulless buildings are making people stressed and lonely, according to Thomas Heatherwick [...] Calling for “a national conversation” about halting the spread of depressing architecture, he said: “We need to fearlessly demand interestingness. We need to rebel against the blandification of our streets, towns and cities, and make buildings that nourish our senses. Human beings deserve human places.”

The Lantern House and Vessel designer has been making the media rounds lately to promote his new treatise Humanize, which offers a call-to-arms of sorts for architects and planners both looking to combat the proven detriments bad architecture has on mental health. Heatherwick says his prognosis has been informed by multiple years of domestic research, including a new study he commissioned from the New Economics Foundation, and that offenders could be broken down by seven criteria: (too) flat, straight, plain, shiny, monotonous, anonymous, and serious.

Responding to this, the Observer critic Rowan Moore writes Heatherwick “does not have much to say about the value of simplicity” and that his argument is too reductivist and could result in “an outbreak of shallow wannabe Gaudís” should architects adapt his principles en masse. His position that Heathwick was too ignorant of the market forces behind modern architecture, however, seems to misunderstand the point of making such an appea...

Heatherwick Studio unveils Shanghai exhibition hall with facade of ‘interwoven ribbons’

2023-06-08T12:05:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has revealed the design of a new public exhibition hall in Shanghai. Named the ‘Orbit’ and located along the city’s West Bund waterfront, the scheme has been designed to be “seemingly accessible from 360 degrees.”

Image credit: Heatherwick Studio

Outside, the center’s facade was designed to resemble a series of interwoven ribbons forming an undulating set of publicly accessible staircases, bridges, and terraces. The circulation elements allow visitors to navigate to the building’s rooftop garden, which contains multiple viewing platforms.

Image credit: Devisual

The ‘ribbon’ staircases also seek to echo the form of traditional Chinese moon bridges, translated to a contemporary form that makes the building “appear as if it is in constant motion.” Visitors ascending the structure can peer through glazed openings in the facade to glimpse the inner exhibition hall, while on the rooftop terrace, the ribbons unravel into an open-air canopy.

Image credit: Devisual

Inside, th...

Heatherwick Studio details progress on Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

2023-05-15T12:20:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has shared new photos of their nearly complete Toranomon-Azabudai mixed-use district in the heart of Tokyo.

The 20-acre plan includes a new school, temple, shopping center, and a 64,583-square-foot central garden with room for 1,400 residences, 150 retailers, and capacity for over 20,000 office workers.

The studio devised a pergola-like facade system in order to give the construction a distinctive visual character while adding a “vibrant piece of urban topography” to the city’s patchwork commercial Minato Ward area.

Previously on Archinect: Heatherwick Studio begins construction in the Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

Heatherwick says they are taking a “human-centred approach by integrating nature into the public spaces.”

Once in operation, the district is expected to attract some 30 million visitors annually. The project broke ground in August of 2019. Tokyo’s Mori Building Company is the client. Construction is expected to be finished by the end of this year...

Heatherwick Studio unveils first public library design in Howard County, Maryland

2023-03-31T17:07:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has released details of their first commissioned public library project in the town of Columbia, Maryland.

Featuring a climbable façade, the five-story library opens to the city’s main promenade with a double-height atrium and a series of transversing exterior terraces lined with native plant species while providing sweeping views of nearby Lake Kittamaqundi.

The studio says its design is meant to “reflect the changed role of the library and serve a community with a rich heritage of fostering diversity and promoting wellbeing.”

Image: Devisual for Heatherwick Studio

Columbia was first developed as a planned community under the progressive vision of founder James Rouse, a prominent local developer known for espousing his conception of “cities as gardens for the growing of people.” Their contribution, therefore, looks to honor this legacy and will serve as a font for educational programs and other activities in line with Rouse’s philosophy.

Image: Devisual for Heat...

Heatherwick collaborates with Harley-Davidson for design of Milwaukee community park

2023-01-11T13:48:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio and Harley-Davidson have unveiled details of their plan to transform part of the motorcycle manufacturer’s headquarters in Milwaukee into a public park. According to the design team, the largely concrete site will be converted into a “civic and soulful green gathering space that can be used by everyone, including employees and the local community.”

Image credit: Heatherwick Studio

The scheme will be anchored by a 272-foot-wide sunken events space named ‘The Hub.’ Formed of tiered seating and landscaped with trees and plants, the circular multi-use space will be constructed of ten types of locally sourced brick, weathered steel, and timber.

In one direction, The Hub will provide views of the original brick Harley-Davidson manufacturing buildings, while in the other, the space will provide views of a park filled with 120 native plant species and a planned market street, contemplative garden, and nature playground.

Image credit: Heatherwick Studio

“Our goal is to turn ...

A first look inside Heatherwick Studio’s new Shanghai office

2022-12-16T11:22:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has offered a first look inside their new Shanghai studio, the first overseas office to be opened by the London design firm. The office is located within 1000 Trees, a building designed by Heatherwick which opened in 2021.

Image credit: Qingyan Zhu for Heatherwick Studio

Located on the fourth floor of the 1000 Trees’ shopping center, among retail and hospitality units, the new studio is described as “a public space where passers-by will be able to engage with the studio’s designs.” The studio will also offer guided tours to visitors wishing to learn more about the firm’s work.

Image credit: Qingyan Zhu for Heatherwick Studio

The front of the workspace features multiple stacked cubes serving as display boxes for a collection of models from the studio’s Asian projects, including the Bund Finance Center, the Nanyang Learning Hub in Singapore, and the 1000 Trees development itself. Alongside its public function, the studio will accommodate a team of ten architects leadi...

New photos show progress on Heatherwick's Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

2022-12-08T14:57:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has shared construction photos of its soon-to-complete Toranomon-Azabudai redevelopment project underway in Tokyo.

The firm’s first Japanese project is set to bring a new school, temple, shopping areas, and a 64,583-square-foot central garden to a previously underutilized district in the heart of the capital city’s Minato Ward for developers Mori Building Company.

"It’s been very exciting working on the Toranomon-Azabudai project and much of our effort has been focused on designing the public spaces that everyone will experience when they spend time in this new area," Heatherwick said at the project’s initial announcement.

Previously on Archinect: Heatherwick Studio begins construction in the Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo. Rendering by DBOX for Mori Building Co.

"For the design, we have taken a human-centred approach by integrating nature into the public spaces. A pergola-like façade system has been devised and scaled up to unify the project and to allow p...

Heatherwick Studio's new kinetic Glasshouse opens its petals to the English countryside

2022-06-28T12:14:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has unveiled a new small greenhouse project for the National Trust’s historic Woolbeding Gardens estate in West Sussex, England.

Taking the form of a sheltering flower bud, the structure comprises ten steel ‘sepals’ operated by a hydraulic mechanism that takes about four minutes to open. Its 141-square-meter (1,517-square-foot) interior contains a variety of subtropical Chinese flora and is surrounded by a new Silk Route Garden, which invites visitors on a 12-step journey through each of the trade corridor’s different geographic regions.

Image © Hufton+Crow

The studio says it was inspired by Victorian-era terrariums, and the structure took a total of six years to develop. The project was commissioned by the estate’s longtime owner, Stewart Grimshaw, who, along with his partner, Sainsbury’s heir Simon Sainsbury, had previously inaugurated sculptural interventions by William Pye and Philip Jebb into their sprawling 1,100-acre gardens, which former British Prime Mini...

Oliver Wainwright has seen this movie before with Heatherwick’s Tree of Trees installation

2022-06-01T17:40:00-04:00

Heatherwick himself has become the puckish poster boy for the current bout of arboreal mania. He has even incorporated his trademark plant-pots-on-sticks into a range of office furniture. If in doubt, the studio mantra seems to go – just smother the design with a garnish of greenery.

The Guardian critic echoed colleague Rowan Moore's derisive critique of Heatherwick’s continued “abuse of metaphors” published in late April and added his own criticism that the 350-tree structure, just like the MVRDV-designed Marble Arch Mound, offers “yet another example of the recent fetish among certain architects and designers for conjuring a cartoonish version of nature, suspending shrubbery and balancing trees in ways that make the plants look decidedly unhappy to be there.”

Previously on Archinect: An 'abuse of metaphors': Rowan Moore on Thomas Heatherwick’s tree-inspired jubilee design (and other UK public monument debates)

An 'abuse of metaphors': Rowan Moore on Thomas Heatherwick’s tree-inspired jubilee design (and other UK public monument debates)

2022-05-02T16:03:00-04:00

I’ll pass by the abuse of metaphors (do milestones have hearts?) but not of trees, this being another case of certain designers’ mania for picking them up, moving them around and putting them where they don’t want to be. Those words from the studio also take liberties with the idea of art. They call the Tree of Trees a “sculpture”. Boris Johnson may once have compared Heatherwick to Michelangelo, but David it is not.

The Observer critic joined a plethora of online commentators that picked apart Heatherwick Studio’s “Tree Of Trees” Earth Day announcement by comparing it to last year’s fiasco surrounding the MVRDV-designed Marble Arch Mound, which he described as a “cartoon version of nature is placed in a London ceremonial space by people who don’t seem to have thought much about what it is that makes trees lovely.”

Moore has been critical of Heatherwick’s design inspiration in the past, referring to The Vessel designer as a “pied piper [of the] very rich” in a 2017 missive and famously citing his work as an example of the migration away from “grown-up architecture” in a 2019 piece, in which he derided cloying gimmicks that offer “at most two-liners.”

Moore also touched on the controversial (and recently-rejected) UK Holocaust Memorial proposal, laying its failure on the decision to include a learning center and stating that the government should now “take the opportunity of its verdict to apply...

Heatherwick Studio designs floating parkland pier for Seoul

2022-01-27T15:26:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has unveiled their proposal for a public waterfront development in Seoul, South Korea. The proposal forms part of a wider sports and cultural district close to the site of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

Named The Leaf, the Heatherwick scheme consists of a multi-level pier sitting on the Han River. The pier features a walkable roofscape with undulating surfaces, consisting of winding trails, water gardens, play areas, observation points, and an event/auditorium space. The roofscape folds upwards at the edges to create lower-level waterside spaces as well as a marina for water taxis and leisure craft.

Image via Heatherwick Studio

“At the heart of our project is the idea of playful togetherness,” said Heatherwick Partner and Project Lead, Stuart Wood. “We want this to be a refreshing and dynamic new civic space for the city of Seoul where people come to laugh, explore, and connect. Somewhere joyful and restorative for everyone.”

Heatherwick is one of a number of arch...

Heatherwick Studio unveils updated designs for 1700 Alberni development in Vancouver

2022-01-13T17:00:00-05:00

An update to one of the most significant projects in a spate of recent high-profile Canadian luxury residential developments as Heatherwick Studio has unveiled its upgraded designs for the 1700 Alberni towers complex. The revised proposal follows community feedback taken from Vancouver’s Shape Your City public web forum.

Marked by its intricate latticework and gentle lines, the towers make up a distinctive silhouette contrasted against the city’s rezoned West End skyline. The new plans call for a repositioning and resizing of the towers to create less restricted views of that skyline, in addition to expanding the biophilic outdoor living and pedestrian spaces which give the overall development its green character.

The new street-level view of the tower. Rendering via @wearenarrativ.

“We saw an opportunity to reflect on the past two years and show a more dynamic and contemporary way to live in the city of Vancouver,” Partner Stuart Wood said in a statement. “Our design offers a profo...

New photos of Thomas Heatherwick's now completed Lantern House

2021-09-20T18:35:00-04:00

Photographer Colin Miller has new images of the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Lantern House condominium building sitting along the High Line in New York’s tony Chelsea neighborhood.

The recently completed development was a bit overshadowed by Heatherwick Studio’s recent additions to the city, which includes the controversial Vessel at Hudson Yards and nearby Little Island floating park.

Now, as tenants officially begin moving into the designer’s first completed residential development, admire the sculptural form and unique modular bay window facade thanks to Miller‘s photos of the latest high-profile Heatherwick addition to the visual landscape of New York City.

Thomas Heatherwick reported to be consulting on a UK Covid memorial

2021-07-27T15:31:00-04:00

The Times is reporting that Thomas Heatherwick has met with members of the British government as recently as March in what could be discussions surrounding a future memorial to COVID-19 victims in the UK.

Heatherwick has done a number of high-profile commissions in London, the city of his birth, over the past decade. Cabinet Office Minister Chloe Smith took a meeting with the 51-year-old architect although nothing further has been confirmed in terms of his involvement.

Related: Thomas Heatherwick on Archinect Sessions podcast, "Problem-solving with Thomas Heatherwick"

A commission for a memorial has been announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a May address to parliament. The memorial will be established at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. An online fundraiser has already garnered more than £2.3 in donations from across the commonwealth.

Johnson told the House of Commons it was a “solemn duty” to construct a national memorial.

There is a fraught history recently between Heath...

The Vessel at Hudson Yards is reopening after a string of suicides

2021-05-27T21:22:00-04:00

Hudson Yards is reopening The Vessel this week with a renewed focus on suicide prevention following a rash of incidents last year.

The Vessel was closed in January after three people took their lives inside the 150-foot sculpture over a period of 15 months.

Harm-reduction trainings have been added along with a number of other security precautions including a ban on solo entry, signs promoting suicide prevention, and added staff, which developer Related Companies says will be funded by a new $10 ticket fee.

Previously on Archinect: Hudson Yards Vessel closed following another suicide

Related Companies did not offer to raise the waist-high barriers that line the walkway inside of Thomas Heatherwick’s centerpiece sculpture. The move would have mirrored similar prevention measures taken recently at NYU and the George Washington bridge with some success, according to the New York Times.

“I understand that the Vessel is seen as a work of art and architecture, and there’s a certain aestheti...

Heatherwick's $260 million elevated river park 'Little Island' opens in NYC

2021-05-20T14:01:00-04:00

Rising from the Hudson River, Little Island preens atop a bouquet of tulip-shaped columns, begging to be posted on Instagram. Outside, it’s eye candy. Inside, a charmer, with killer views.

NYT critic Michael Kimmelman reviews the anticipated elevated river park Little Island (formerly known as Pier 55) which opens on Manhattan's Hudson River bank this week.

Designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Signe Nielsen of NY-based landscape architecture firm MNLA, the $260 million parcel resting on a forest of tulip-shaped concrete pillars had a rocky start and was pronounced dead at some point during years of legal controversy. The now completed attraction impresses with urban green space, river vistas, several new event venues and summer programming atop an engineering feat realized by Arup.

Photo: Michael Grimm.

"I’ve become a Heatherwick skeptic lately, but his contribution here is in the theatrical vein of 18th century English garden follies," Kimmelman writes, adding, "not least because Little Island can remind you more of a private estate than a city park. It’s clearly going to cost a king’s ransom to maintain, a burden the Hudson River Park Trust (which is to say the public...

Heatherwick Studio shares the latest visual for their new residential tower proposal for Vancouver

2021-01-25T15:12:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio continues to expand its residential project portfolio as they share their latest high-rise residential project in Vancouver, Canada. In partnership with Kingswood Properties and commissioned by Bosa Properties, the design aims to "bring a new level of global design excellence to Vancouver, featuring two curvaceous, light-filled towers and a publicly-accessible ground level plaza for community engagement" shares the studio.

While more details of the project have yet to unfold, previous Heatherwick residential projects offer glimpses of what can be expected for the studio's latest Vancouver venture.

Lantern House in New York

EDEN in Singapore

Revisit Archinect Sessions #29 to listen to Archinect's conversation with Heatherwick: Problem-solving with Thomas Heatherwick.

Archinect · Session 29: Problem-solving with Thomas Heatherwick

Thomas Heatherwick on the future of the workplace

2020-12-18T13:03:00-05:00

For a designer who’s developing office space around the world, Thomas Heatherwick doesn’t seem too fazed by how the pandemic might affect the future of the workplace. [...] Mr. Heatherwick said the shift to working from home was well under way even before coronavirus hit.

Heatherwick Studio has recently been collaborating on major office and mixed-use developments in Silicon Valley, including the Google Charleston East HQ with BIG and the Downtown West San Jose plan with KPF, Grimshaw, SHoP, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and SITELAB urban studio.

For a tour of Thomas Heatherwick's London office and our conversation with him, revisit the Archinect Sessions episode, Problem-solving with Thomas Heatherwick.