Thomas Heatherwick: Making

How do you:
Design a building using an electron microscope?
Produce a stunning new bus for London that uses less fuel too?
Make someone eat your business card?
Develop a new kind of mosque?
Turn the back door
of a hospital into its front door?
Grow a meadow in the centre of a city?
Generate the form of 
a building in less than a minute?
Use saliva as an ingredient of a Christmas card?
Create a piece 
of architecture that represents a nation?

Still just two decades into his career, British designer Thomas Heatherwick has been heralded as on of the most creative talents for many years. He has produced everything from sculptural chairs, forged by the world's largest aluminium extruder, to a bridge that rolls open and closed, and an exuberant seed bank, 'hairy' with fibre-optic lights.

This is the first book to present an exhaustive survey of his studio's output to date – over 140 projects. Long in development, it has been prepared in close collaboration with Heatherwick himself, offering a highly personal, in-depth and behind-the-scenes look at all aspects of Heatherwick's creative, design and manufacturing processes.

Projects are organise chronologically and bookended by an introduction setting out the studio's philosophy and a reference section. Each project is fully illustrated and accompanied by a text explaining, in Heatherwick's words, the design question it posed and the creative and practical processes used to address it.

About the Author:

Thomas Heatherwick leads the design of all Heatherwick Studio projects, working in collaboration with a team of 200 architects, designers and makers across four continents on projects valued at over £2 billion. He has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Royal Academician and in 2004 became the youngest Royal Designer for Industry.