Thomas Heatherwick, renowned British designer heralded by Terence Conran as the ‘Leonardo da Vinci of our times’, is the founder of Heatherwick Studio, which is committed to design solutions that maximise the potential of materials and craftsmanship. Among his most notable achievements are the award-winning UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, the Rolling Bridge in London’s Paddington and the Olympic cauldron at London 2012.

Heatherwick talks about the creative process and the blurred frontier between design, architecture and society with Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and associate dean of external relations at IE School of Architecture at IE University.