Skip to main content



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?