Event 1: The Hammer Museum Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio

The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio is an excellent showcase of British Designer Heatherwick’s famous works. Heatherwick’s work fully demonstrates his concepts of what contemporary society should look like. He uses normal everyday materials to create innovative projects, and this exhibition shows us Heatherwick’s creative process by bringing together different prototypes, objects that inspires his works and the models of several finished pieces.

When I entered the exhibition hall, I immediately noticed something familiar; the Pacific Place in Hong Kong! Pacific Place is a complex of office towers, hotels and a shopping center located in Admiralty, Hong Kong, and this shopping complex is one of the landmarks and tourist attractions in Hong Kong. I have been to the Pacific Place several times when I was living in Hong Kong and I was amazed that Heatherwick was the one behind the magnificent renovation. 

Before the renovation, Pacific Place was just one of the shopping centers that speak of consumerism with boring and outdated design. After the $166-million project (Pacific Place), Pacific Place has reinvented its image, the spatial engagement was improved with natural lighting and created a large amount of public space and gardens. Heatherwick’s design successfully merge architecture, technology and art together, he presented a vivid and lively representation of a modernize world to all the customers within the space. Whenever I passed by this place, I feel like Pacific Place is not just a commercial building anymore, but a living work of art that is welcoming and full of life.

  

http://37.128.132.134/~hstudio/content/uploads/2013/02/Pacific-Place.5.Iwan-Baan.jpg

Speaking of magnificent work, one cannot help but to mention the iconic UK Pavilion from the Shanghai Expo back in 2010. The pavilion is also known as the Seed Cathedral, Heatherwick’s studio uses 60,000 identical rods to make the curvy exterior, which resembles a cathedral to seeds that symbols the idea of future cities ("UK Pavilion"). I think the way Heatherwick’s team incorporated their national identity is very interesting, in the picture you can clearly see the British flag but when you slightly change the angle, the flag disappear. This reminds me the idea of perspective and shifting paradigm from Week 2’s lecture, I think his design fully demonstrates that our future is every changing and we cannot just see things in one perspective; that we have to constantly reinvent ourselves to see the most important thing in life.

I also think that a lot of Heatherwick’s design is very ecological, both the Pacific Place and the UK Pavilion stress the relationships of cities and nature, while we think that the two ideas are unintelligible, Heatherwick successfully demonstrates that they are both compatible and that we can have the best of both worlds by paying attention to the ecology of the planet as well as social development.

Works Cited

"UK Pavilion." Heatherwick Studio. Web. 6 May 2015.

Hawthorne, Christopher. "Review 'Provocations' Pays Tribute to Designer Thomas Heatherwick." Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb. 2015. Web. 6 May 2015.

"Closed Exhibition – Heatherwick Studio: Designing The Extraordinary." Victoria and Albert Museum, Digital Media. Web. 6 May 2015.

"Pacific Place." Heatherwick Studio. Web. 6 May 2015.

"Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio - Hammer Museum." The Hammer Museum. Web. 6 May 2015.