Famed British designer Thomas Heatherwick has started to design a lot more buildings, but his architecture is still fairly rare. But we’re lucky enough in Singapore that we now have two buildings by Heatherwick, one just completed, and with another on the way!
One of his more iconic works is the NTU Learning Hub (pictured above) which was completed in 2013. As with several of Heatherwick’s buildings that I have seen, the overall concept is fantastic and the key details are stunning, but the overall architectural execution and coordination are a bit haphazard. All in all, the building is stunning.
The building is an educational space for Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University and although slightly raw, seems to be perfect for contemporary educational pedagogies for open and collaborative learning. The scalloped exterior ‘pods’ clad in striated precast concrete panels host the classrooms, facing into generous scalloped internal terraces around a central atrium.
Just completed this month, Heatherwick’s latest project in Singapore is a high-end residential tower called Eden Residences (pictured below).
The skyscraper reads as a series of solid vertical planes. Some of the most interesting balconies ever, scalloped inverted shell-like forms with draping greenery, are inserted into the vertical slots between solid planes.
Both of Heatherwick’s buildings in Singapore demonstrate a remarkable sensitivity to the local climate, with largely solid external facades blocking the harsh tropical heat and focused areas to experience the tempered external environment.
Heatherwick fans can look forward to his collaboration with Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) to design the gigantic new Terminal 5 at Singapore’s Changi Airport, which is slated to be completed in the 2030’s. Unfortunately no images of the design have been released yet, but it will be interesting to see how Heatherwick’s design sensibilities will be translated on such a large scale.
Images by Jonathan Choe
