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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... View full entry
KPF and Heatherwick Studio’s collaboration on the new Changi Airport Terminal 5 is set for take off in Singapore after officials there announced plans for to break ground on the $10 billion project in the first half of 2025. Once it is ready by the mid-2030s, the terminal will serve around... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
Heatherwick Studio has offered a construction update on its design for the UCB Windlesham Surrey Science Research Hub in the United Kingdom. When completed, the building will serve as a hub for the Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB. In new photos released by the firm, the project's... View full entry
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... View full entry
Google has not publicly disclosed the reasons for the Wi-Fi problems, but workers say the 600,000-square-foot building’s swooping, wave-like rooftop swallows broadband like the Bermuda Triangle. [...]
But, a Google spokeswoman acknowledged, "we’ve had Wi-Fi connectivity issues in Bay View." She said Google "made several improvements to address the issue," and the company hoped to have a fix in coming weeks.
— Reuters
The roof of the BIG and Heatherwick Studio-designed Bay View headquarters, which opened in 2022, is a key component of the building’s circular design strategy and features 90,000 "dragonscale" solar panels. Some believe they could be causing the interference. Related on Archinect: Google's... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — The Guardian
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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 Guardian
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... View full entry
