Complex Seed Continues To Shine

2010 October 8

tags: London Design Festival, London Design Medal, Shanghai Expo, Thomas Heatherwick, uk pavillion

by MODERNICA

Seed Cathedral

Designer Thomas Heatherwick planted a seed this year and it transformed into something incredible at the Shanghai Expo giving a big nod to British innovation recently celebrated at the London Design Festival. Considered a lifetime achievement award, Heatherwick was given the 2010 London Design Medal for his outstanding accomplishments including the UK Pavilion constructed for the Shanghai 2010 Expo.

Heatherwick Studios constructed the spectacular 65 foot high Seed Cathedral with 60,000 transparent 23 foot long optical strands, each embedded with a seed donated by China’s Kunming Institute of Botany in cooperation with the UK’s Kew Royal Botanic Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank Project. The project mission is to collect the seeds of 25% of the world’s plant species by 2020.

The interior looks like a futuristic cave illuminated by the daylight filtered past each seed through the optical hairs. The potential for life and the future of the planet is encased in each of these tiny seeds which extends from the man made creation reaching out to millions.

“After the Expo, just as dandelion seeds are blown away and disperse on the breeze, the Seed Cathedral’s 60,000 optic hairs, each one containing the huge potential of life, will be distributed across China and the UK to hundreds of schools as a special legacy of the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.”