Humanising our Cities
Seoul Design International Forum 2023 14 September, KST13:00-18:00 Live Streaming SDIF.ORG |
Keynote Session
Humanising our Cities
Thomas Heatherwick(Founder of Heatherwick Studio)
Heatherwick Studio believes that emotion is the crucial ingredient that is missing in so much of design today. When did everything become so boring and homogenous? Who is really thinking about how to make buildings, places and objects mean something to us - to lift our spirits and connect us? How can we make our cities more human?
World-renowned designer Thomas Heatherwick will outline his thoughts around how designers and policy makers can create more human places, and explain how a fundamental understanding of emotion has shaped how Heatherwick Studio works across all scales and typologies.
Thomas Heatherwick(Founder of Heatherwick Studio)
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 create 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 Silicon Valley and 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 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 King’s Cross, London.
Thomas’ forthcoming book, Humanise, will be published by Penguin in 2023
