event 1: Provocations

I attended the Provocations exhibit at the Hammer Museum and viewed Thomas Heatherwick’s awesome designs and architecture. I had known about his Seed Cathedral from my good friend who’s a USC architecture student (I let the USC thing slide). I had no idea, however, that Heatherwick was behind the beautiful cauldron at the 2012 Olympics.

Starstruck by a miniature Olympic cauldron.

Throughout the exhibit were blueprints and to scale models of designs from his studio, located in London. The efforts of the Heatherwick Studio blend practicality and modernity, as seen in the design for a park in the Middle East. Because of the extreme heat and sun of the desert, the studio decided to provide built in shade for the park. However, rather than simply creating canopies, they designed a two-story park. The top level provides shade for the bottom level; in which palm trees and other plants flourish near a manmade pool. The design allows people to comfortably relax and come together, making community more possible than before.

 

Two-story park!

In his TED Talk, Heatherwick makes it clear that creating public spaces that allow for human interaction is important to him. For his Seed Cathedral, the majority of the space they used is textured open space, allowing the public to gather and use the space however they want – including rolling down the manmade hills together. The theme of community also stands out trough Heatherwicks Studio’s creations, including the amazing spinning top chairs. The Hammer Museum had the chairs for use in their plaza, and my friends and I put them to good use. Spinning around in a chair with friends and strangers, everyone expressing their glee through laughter, was a really touching experience. For a few minutes, everyone who was spinning was linked together.

Heatherwick Studios is able to use technology to research and develop new ways to create everything from buses to bridges to buildings. The science they use simultaneously brings pragmatic and humanistic elements to architecture.