10 Projects whose Stairs make climbing a memorable act

Thomas Heatherwick established in 1994, Heatherwick Studio recognised for its work in architecture, urban infrastructure, sculpture, design and strategic thinking. Today a team of 180, including architects, designers and makers, works from a combined studio and workshop in Kings Cross, London.

At the heart of the studio’s work is a profound commitment to finding innovative design solutions, with a dedication to artistic thinking and the latent potential of materials and craftsmanship. This is achieved through a working methodology of collaborative rational inquiry, undertaken in a spirit of curiosity and experimentation.

In the twenty years of its existence, Heatherwick Studio has worked in many countries, with a wide range of commissioners and in a variety of regulatory environments. Through this experience, the studio has acquired a high level of expertise in the design and realisation of unusual projects, with a particular focus on the large scale.

The studio’s work includes a number of nationally significant projects for the UK, including the award-winning UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, the Olympic Cauldron for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and the New Bus for London.

Thomas is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; a Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum; and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Royal College of Art, University of Dundee, University of Brighton, Sheffield Hallam University and University of Manchester.

He has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize, and, in 2004, was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry. In 2010, Thomas was awarded the RIBA’s Lubetkin Prize and the London Design Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to design.

In 2013 Thomas was awarded a CBE for his services to the design industry.

Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, Japan in 1941. A self-educated architect, he spent time in nearby Kyoto and Nara, studying firsthand the great monuments of traditional Japanese architecture. Between 1962 and 1969 he traveled to the United States, Europe, and Africa, learning about Western architecture, history, and techniques. His studies of both traditional Japanese and modern architecture had a profound influence on his work and resulted in a unique blend of these rich traditions.

In 1969 Ando established Tadao Ando Architect and Associates in Osaka. He is an honorary fellow in the architecture academies of six countries; he has been a visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard Universities; and in 1997, he became professor of architecture at Tokyo University.

Ando has received numerous architecture awards, including the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995, the 2002 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and also in 2002, the Kyoto Prize for lifetime achievement in the arts and philosophy. His buildings can be seen in Japan, Europe, the United States, and India.

In fall 2001, following up on the comprehensive master plan commissioned from Cooper, Robertson & Partners in the 1990s and completed in 2001, Tadao Ando was selected to develop an architectural master plan for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute to expand its buildings and enhance its 140-acre campus.

Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

Wolf D. Prix, born in Vienna in 1942, a co-founder, Design Principal and CEO of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU. He studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, the Architectural Association of London, and the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles.

Most formative among his many international teaching positions was his tenure at the University of Applied Arts Vienna: from 1993 to 2011 he was Professor for Architecture (Studio Prix), and stepped down from his position as vice chancellor of the Institute of Architecture in 2012. He taught as a visiting professor at the Architectural Association in London in 1984 and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990.From 1985 to 1995, Wolf D. Prix was active as Adjunct Professor at the SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. In 1998 he was a faculty member of Columbia University in New York.

In 1999, Wolf D. Prix was awarded the Harvey S. Perloff Professorship at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2001, he served as adjunct professor at UCLA and became a Doctor Honoris Causa de la Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 2002, Wolf D. Prix was made Officier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres and was also awarded the gold medal for merits to the federal state of Vienna. He received in 2004 the Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education for his commitment to teaching and training and was awarded with the Jencks Award: Visions Built prize for his major contribution to the theory and practice of architecture in 2008. A year later, Federal President Dr. Heinz Fischer bestowed the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art on Wolf D. Prix for his outstanding creative achievements. In 2011 he was honoured with the “Silberne Komturkreuz des Landes Niederösterreich” as well as the Honorary Citizenship of the City of Busan, Southkorea.

From 1995 to 1997, Wolf D. Prix was a member of the architectural committee in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts. He is a member of the Austrian Art Senate, of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as of the Advisory Committee for Building Culture. Furthermore, Wolf D. Prix belongs to the Architectural Association Austria, the Association of German Architects (BDA) in Germany, the Architectural Association Santa Clara in Cuba, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Chamber of Architects Île de France and the Architectural Association Italy.

The work of Wolf D. Prix has been published in numerous books and his architectural designs have been featured in many museums and collections worldwide. In 2006, he was the commissioner for the Austrian contribution for the 10th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Hiroshi Nakamura. Born in Tokyo, 1974. Completed the Master Course, Department of Architecture, Graduated from the University of Meiji with M.Architecture Degree, 1999. Chief engineer in Kengo Kuma&Associates, 1999-2002. Established First Class Architect Office / Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Co., Ltd. / Currently this office representative director, 2002.

Awards. Grand Prize, JCD Design Award 2006 / Grand Prize, GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2008 / ShinKenchiku Award 2010 / Design Vanguard 2010 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD TOP 10 architect in the world (USA).

Works. Dancing trees Singing birds, House C, Roku museum.

Publishing. Microscopic Designing Methodology (INAX Publishing) / Love in Architecture(ASCII) / Reading Skills of Architects(TOTO).