Social media videos capture construction on hotly-anticipated Heatherwick projects

Two of the most anticipated leisure projects in the pipeline of British design firm Heatherwick Studio have been showcased through new videos on social media.

The first, filmed by videographer John Sturrock, shows construction advancing on the Coal Yards at King’s Cross in London. Two disused Victorian coal drop buildings at the railway station are being transformed into 100,000sq m (1m sq ft) of culture and leisure space.

watch this Thomas Heatherwick-designed retail destination take shape in london https://t.co/ayMrP7jL6x pic.twitter.com/HTlxnq1AJt

— designboom (@designboom) August 9, 2017

The structures, which stand apart, are being repaired and connected by a new upper level stitching their two roofs together – a process which can be followed in the video via a timelapse.

When completed in Q2 2018, 65 interior units will be occupied by art galleries, restaurants, bars and retailers – with a focus on fashion and lifestyle. The surrounding coal yard will be transformed into a large public square.

Commenting on the project last year, Heatherwick Studio founder Thomas Heatherwick said: “These two historic structures were never originally designed for people to circulate through. By themselves they would have never made a successful retail destination if we did nothing more than clean them and fill them with shops, because the distance between them is too great to have any social chemistry.

“For this reason, rather than adding an entirely foreign new structure to connect the old buildings, we chose simply to bend and stitch the two roofs together, forming another level of activity underneath, and framing and weather-protecting a dynamic new public space for the city.

A mountain-inspired district in Shanghai

The second video, featuring drone footage captured in July by architecture collective Do Not Settle, reveals how far progress has advanced on Heatherwick’s mountain-inspired Moganshan project in Shanghai.

The mixed-use development, located next to the city’s arts district, will incorporate a verdant 300,000sq m (3.2 sq ft) complex of buildings, with approximately 1,000 structural columns supporting plants and trees.

“The design has been conceived not as a building but as a piece of topography, taking the form of two tree-covered mountains,” Heatherwick Studio said in a statement when the design was first revealed in December 2015.

The work of Heatherwick has inspired several videos popular on social media; such as this one from April showing construction taking place on the honeycomb-like sculptural landmark he is building in Manhattan, New York for the Hudson Yards development.

In June, Berlin-based architecture photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu captured the first images of an elegant new Shanghai theatre designed by Heatherwick Studio and Foster + Partners, which has caught imaginations online with its kinetic moving facade.