Ep:#64 Human emotion and architecture with Heatherwick’s Eliot Postma

I was researching schools in Brazil for my 12-year-old a few months ago. The schools on the short-list were the same when it came to teachers, distance from home, and their approach to education. But the deal breaker for me was one thing: the architectural experience inside the school. And until I had this conversation with Eliot, I hadn’t truly understood what that experience was and why it was so important to me. Eliot Postma has been working with Heatherwick Studio since 2010 to deliver innovative designs on numerous high-profile projects that focus on the human experience through form, craft, materiality, and sustainability. Heatherwick and Eliot are all about reconnecting the built environment with the human emotion – and today he’s going to help us understand why that is so important. Eliot answers some pretty big questions in this episode. What does it mean to make places and things more joyful and fundamentally more human? And how can architecture create the necessary solutions for the climate and biodiversity crises our planet is facing? He uses examples from his experience working on a large portfolio of projects that span Europe, North America and Asia to bring his thoughts to life. We hear about what solutions the studio designed for a UK cancer research charity to create a home-like and calming environment for people that have just discovered they have cancer. And he brings to life the story of how they created the award-winning Mountain View Google campus. Google's first ground-up campus that took 10-years to create, that spans 3-million square feet and had sustainability central to all aspects of the design. We talk about re-earthing our cities. The significant impact that construction has on the climate crisis and what the solutions are. And where one of the world’s most famous design studios is looking for the next 20 years. This is a super inspiring conversation and one that will get you thinking. So grab that favourite beverage or throw on those running shoes, and enjoy this conversation with Eliot. And please don’t forget to let us know what you think of this episode, leave a review and subscribe. And if you would like to be reminded of future podcasts and other inspiring stories from TIE, join our newsletter here. http://bit.ly/TIENewsletter