THOMAS HEATHERWICK QUESTIONS


Thomas Heatherwick is a designer who asks unusual questions in order to inspire creative thought- here are some of the questions he has tried to answer through his designs:

(What unusual questions could you be asking about your own work?)

Can a bridge also be a place?

How can a new pier also be a park and a world class performance space?

How can every country in the Olympic games take part in making and lighting the Olympic Cauldren?

Can a building help change the way we learn?

How do you turn 42 concrete tubes into a space to experience contemporary culture?

How do you turn a paper mill into a gin distillery?

How can a big new development relate to it's surroundings?

Can you make a park out of the desert?

How can a traditional Japanese moon bridge meet today's standards of accessibility?

Can a structure you can hardly see have a presence in your mind?

How do you make a new transport infrastructure that is unique to London?

How do you reconcile the need to build new buildings with the desire to retain old ones?

Can a London bus be better and use 40% less fuel?

Can a Christmas card be made from the postbox it will be posted into?

Can an object be both abstract and representationsl?

Can a building be made out of a park?

Can the regeneration of a post-industrial area be driven by a new power station rather than a new art gallery?

Is it possible to make a rolling bridge long enough to span the River Thames?

Can you squeeze a chair out of a machine in the same way you squeeze toothpaste out of a tube?

How can you give a building a specific relationship to its site?

How can you make a real virtual object?

How can water be used to power a fifteen-storey-high mechanism?

What might a twenty-first-century mosque be like?

Can you turn somebody's name and address into their Christmas card?

How can a building fit into the atmosphere of a busy old district in Hong Kong?

How should a large new building meet the flat surface of the desert?

Can a tower touch the sky gently?

Can you make blocks of apartments without any corridors?

Can a strong structure look delicate?

How can a building represent a nation?

How can the design of an indoor cycling facility capture the spinning energy of racing cyclists?

Can a rotationally symmetrical form make a comfortable chair?

Can you make a new building without knocking the old one down?

How can the character of adjacent infrastructure help to design a building?

How do you complete an unfinished church?

What happens if the perforated edge of a postage stamp is allowed to grow?

How might people interact with a monument?

Can a watch strap tell you the time?

Can water be used as a structural element?

How can you turn a postmark into the main ingredient of a Christmas Card?

How do you deliver £166 million programme of improvements to a shopping centre whilst keeping it open for business?

Can a bridge borrow its structure from nearby buildings?

Can the design of a body of water make a place unique?

How do you make a new restaurant inside an old London pub?

How do you make a round building in a round way?

How do you give individuality to the skin of inexpensive buildings?

How can a seaside building relate to the sea?

How do you make saliva an important ingredient of a Christmas card?

How do you turn the back door of a hospital into the front door?

How can inanimate objects change shape? (Expanding furniture)

How do you make customers overcome their inertia and walk up flights of stairs?

How do you make a textile product using only the zip?

Can you flat-pack a 10m high sculpture?

Can you make objects out of long pieces of zipper?

How can a small building have 4,000 windows?

Can conventional street furniture be used to furnish a street in an unconventional way?

Can a building stand on the architectural equivalent of matchsticks?

Does a window have to be flat?

What asked to put a sculpture next to an ugly building how do you respond?

Roadwork or artwork?

How far can you stretch a budget by using a material that is virtually free?

How do you organise a circular space in a non-circular way without denying its circularity?

Can a wall shelter you from the rain?

Can a Christmas card be bigger than its envelope?

How much three-dimensional form can you give to flat boards?

How do you engineer a structure using 213 materials without giving any one greater importance?