His maternal great-grandfather was the owner of Jaeger, the London fashion firm, one of his grandmothers founded the textile studio at Marks & Spencer and was subsequently an art therapist, and his uncle was the journalist Nicholas Tomalin.

He has served on numerous judging and advisory panels and has given talks at institutions including the RIBA, Bartlett School of Architecture, the South Africa Design Indaba conference, the Royal Academy and TED2011.

The tallest public sculpture ever erected in Britain,[12] it was commissioned to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and took its name from a quote from former Olympic sprint champion Linford Christie about the explosion of energy as a runner starts out of the blocks.

Despite a plea from Angel of the North creator Anthony Gormley to Manchester City Council which described the sculpture as "remarkable, dynamic and engaging",[15] it was dismantled and placed in storage in 2009.

[16] The council sued Heatherwick Studio and their subcontractors over the problems, settling out of court for £1.7m,[17] and in 2012 the sculpture's core was sold for scrap.

The long, single-storey building with a rippled silhouette evoking a sea shell has an outer skin of steel which was allowed to rust before the resulting colours were fixed with an oil-based coating.

[31] A prototype by Wrightbus was unveiled in December 2011;[32] the first buses entered service in February 2012 and Transport for London ordered 600 in September 2012[33] and a further 200 in 2014.

[34] The design features a long front window for the driver and a wrapped glazing panel for passengers, with three doors and two staircases for faster and easier boarding.

In January 2017, Sadiq Khan discontinued Routemaster purchases as a cost-saving measure, promising instead to retrofit older London buses with the latest sustainable technologies.

Heatherwick's design departed from the tradition of a raised bowl by instead consisting of an 8.5m-high "dandelion" of 204 copper "petals" hand-made by skilled car body workers, which were brought into the Olympic Stadium by children representing each team as part of the Parade of Nations, then mounted on blackened steel gas pipes which were lit by seven torchbearers and then rose in concentric circles from the centre outward.

(A non-disclosure agreement barring all companies from promoting work related to the Olympics was in place from 2007 to 2013, and prevented earlier raising of the issue.

)[44] Heatherwick, Boyle, and Martin Green, who had been head of ceremonies at the Olympic committee, all denied knowledge of Atopia's proposal.

[45] In summer 2014, the organisers of the London Olympics reached an out-of-court settlement acknowledging that key elements of the cauldron were present in Atopia's proposal.

[49] Heatherwick had also attended a secret fundraising meeting in California with Apple with then-Mayor Boris Johnson in 2013, before the design contract had been officially awarded.

The report stated that the appointments of Heatherwick Studio as designer and Arup as engineers "were not open, fair or competitive ... and revealed systematic failures and ineffective control systems".

The plants, which are supplemented with others from their native ecosystems, draw on the river for water and are warmed by heat created by the distillation of the gin.

[55][56] The Learning Hub, also known as The Hive, a multi-purpose educational facility built as part of a campus redevelopment programme by Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, opened in 2015.

Rooms are rounded in shape and can be reconfigured; the towers taper toward their bases for an organic appearance, and common spaces include balconies and garden terraces.

[58][59][60] The primary construction material is concrete, with metal stacks of balconies and screened stairs; the façade of the towers was imprinted with a pattern of horizontal lines using twelve silicone moulds, and the walls of the staircase and elevator cores, which are stained reddish-brown, with 700 drawings commissioned from illustrator Sara Fanelli as triggers for thought.

The stretched roofs shelter the yard below which can be used to host events, whilst the third storey will offer views of King's Cross, the Francis Crick Institute and Cubitt Square.

[68] The project is part of the wider re-development programme for the area by Argent LLP and King's Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP).

[75] The concrete shafts were capped with strengthened glass that can be walked over by visitors, and designed to draw light into the building from above and create a cathedral-like interior.

[77] The structure is in the form of a network of interlocking staircases that visitors can climb; its design was inspired by amphitheatres[4] and by the ancient stepwells of India.

[81] Heatherwick Studio collaborated with Fosters + Partners on the Bund Finance Centre (BFC) – a new mixed-use complex in Shanghai.

[83] In 2015, Heatherwick Studio revealed that it was working on projects including the new Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California – in partnership with Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).

The project comprises two mountain-like peaks built with trees planted on the buildings, and it is a mix-use development with retail and offices spaces, as well as event venues, galleries and a hotel.