Humanise

Humanise is a masterwork. It’s quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here. The Age of Boring might just have ended right now – Alain de Botton
Thomas Heatherwick echoes many things I find myself saying as I travel round the country. How the hell did that monstrosity get built? Why is this place so depressing? Why is so much of the built environment so boring? This book will wind up quite a few architects, planners and developers who labour under the delusion that they are the adults in the room. Good. These people need to develop some compassion for the people who have to live with their joyless, bland, unlovable creations. This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn’t put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that – Grayson Perry
Thomas Heatherwick brings a velvet sledgehammer to the way we think about buildings and how they change our lives. In simple, elegant words, he demands that we put people first. Not developers, politicians or architects. I want to live in the kind of city Heatherwick imagines! Vive la revolution! – Simon Sinek, Optimist and New York Times-bestselling author of Start with Why and The Infinite Game
This book will help frustrated ordinary people and communities see what is possible – David Byrne
A revelation. Humanise offers an accessible, compelling and entirely unique perspective on the world in which we live. Heatherwick’s storytelling ability shines through on each and every page - pushing boundaries and challenging perspectives. At a time where thoughtful and constructive ideas and solutions, that put the public at the centre of decision-making, are sought more than ever - this book provides a spark to ignite conversations across our city, country and the globe on how to build a better world for everyone – Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London
Heatherwick makes the case for human buildings that nurture our health and happiness. Out with the ‘blandemic’ of boring buildings and let’s get back to interestingness. He calls for us all to engage with our built environment and so we should – Dame Sally Davies
Architecture has the ability to uplift and inspire, support connection, and fuel invention - bringing life and vitality to our cities by making them better, more beautiful, more sustainable places to live and work. Thomas Heatherwick’s new book offers us a powerful prescription for buildings that put the public first and help set the course for a brighter future for humanity – Mike Bloomberg, entrepreneur, philanthropist, former Mayor of New York City
In a social and economic tour de force, Thomas Heatherwick explodes the waste of bad design: the neighbourhoods destroyed, the wellbeing lost, the carbon burned. And then he pivots to the potential of bending the straight line into a curve, the building into the feeling, and the narrowly rational into the fully human – Mark Carney
Humanise ignites the urgent public conversation I’ve been calling for for years – Sir Terry Farrell CBE, architect and urban designer
A book that will change how you see the world – Simon Jenkins

Thomas Heatherwick is one of the world’s most prolific designers, whose varied work over two decades is characterised by its originality, inventiveness and humanity. Defying conventional classifications, Heatherwick founded his studio in 1994 to bring together architecture, urban planning, product design and interiors into a single creative workspace. Led by human experience rather than any fixed dogma, the studio creates emotionally compelling places and objects with the smallest possible carbon footprint.

From their base in London, Heatherwick’s team is currently working on over thirty projects in ten countries, including Toranomon-Azabudai, a six-hectare mixed-use development in the centre of Tokyo, the new headquarters for Google in London and Airo, an electric car that cleans the air as it drives.

The studio has also recently completed Bay View, Google’s first ground-up campus and Little Island, a park and performance space on the Hudson River in New York as well as the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town; and Coal Drops Yard, a major new retail district in King’s Cross, London.

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