This summer, we are launching the Heatherwick Studio Internship Programme. This is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in our world of creative experimentation, hands on making, and boundary pushing design thinking.
We are looking for students who bring ideas to life through sketches, models, and curiosity. Whether you express yourself boldly or think quietly and carefully, if design is how you question the world and imagine new possibilities, we want to meet you.
At Heatherwick Studio, we are not only seeking architectural designers. We welcome creatively charged individuals from a range of design backgrounds, including those who explore through making, communicate visually, and bring fresh perspectives to the table.
What You Will Do
During your time with us, you will:
Contribute to live project teams while learning our design approach
Sketch, prototype, explore in 3D, research, and present ideas with clarity
Collaborate with designers, makers, and specialists across the studio
Learn quickly, ask questions, and develop your own design voice
Help shape ideas that push the future of design forward
You will work with physical models, sketches, and 3D tools such as Rhino or similar.
What You Bring
Creative energy and clear thinking
Confidence with sketching, hand making, and emerging 3D exploration
Strong conceptual imagination supported by developing analytical skills
A portfolio that shows process, curiosity, and care rather than perfection
Motivation to grow quickly, challenge yourself, and embrace feedback
Resourceful making skills, with models that can be made from any materials
We value original thinking in all forms, whether you are quietly thoughtful or confidently expressive.
Who Should Apply
This programme supports students at different stages of their architectural or design education. Every student brings unique strengths, and the guide below describes the experience we typically expect at each level.
For Year 2 Students
Strong conceptual thinking and curiosity
Solid physical model making skills
Developing confidence with 3D representation
An emerging design voice shaped through studio projects
Enthusiasm for hands on learning and comfort asking questions
For Year 4 Students
Broader exposure to design and technical methods through advanced coursework or previous experience
Growing confidence with complex 3D workflows and integrated design processes
A clearer and more defined design approach
Experience working within collaborative project environments
The ability to take initiative and move ideas from early concept toward refinement
This is a two‑month paid internship beginning in mid‑June.
Heatherwick Studio is a team of 200 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone. Based out of our combined workshop and design studio in Central London, we create buildings, spaces, master-plans, objects and infrastructure. Focusing on large scale projects in cities all over the world, we prioritise those with the greatest positive social impact.
Working as practical inventors with no signature style, our motivation is to design soulful and interesting places which embrace and celebrate the complexities of the real world. The approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design dogma. The studio’s founder Thomas Heatherwick comes from a background immersed in materials and making. His curiosity and passion for problem-solving matured into the studio’s current design process where every architect, designer, landscape architect and maker is encouraged to challenge and contribute ideas.
Positive and pragmatic, the studio’s team are collaborators whose role is to listen, question, then lead the conception and construction of special and unusual places. Ingenuity and inspiration are used to make projects that are affordable and buildable. And our client is vital, who comes on the journey and challenges our thinking; together we look for the opportunities that might traditionally be overlooked. Our best future projects are the ones that will teach us the most.
