John Foerster ‘64 Fund Lecture: Thomas Heatherwick

This year’s John Foerster ‘64 Fund Lecture will be delivered by Thomas Heatherwick. Response by Amelyn Ng and Bart-Jan Polman.

This lecture will be hosted in Wood Auditorium at Columbia GSAPP and live-streamed on GSAPP’s YouTube channel.

Thomas Heatherwick is a globally-celebrated, visionary designer and fierce advocate for bringing joy, interest and humanity to our cities. Over the past 30 years he has designed soulful and extraordinary new districts, cultural landmarks and transport infrastructure across the globe. He now also campaigns for an end to the ‘blandemic’ of harmful, boring buildings that are bad for society and bad for the planet. His studio has become one of the most diverse and inventive creative organisations in the world, and the team is currently working on over 30 projects in ten countries, including Seoul’s Nodeul Island and Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 5 in collaboration with KPF. Previous projects include Azabudai Hills, a new neighbourhood in the centre of Tokyo; Little Island, a floating public park in New York; Google’s first ground-up campus in California; the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town; and an astonishing new retail district in Xi’an, China.