With three buildings under construction this year, Thomas Heatherwick is one of the UK's most closely watched young architects. Just don't call him an architect-he's also responsible for a 55-ton staircase of undulating steel in NewYork City,a hydraulic bridge across a canal feeding the River Thames that can curl itself into a ball to make way for passing boats, and the tallest sculpture in England. The eclectic assortment of projects makes it impossible to pin a label on Heatherwick: The Tate Modern lists him with other artists, but the UK Design Council sees him as an engineer. "He often achieves his projects by defying gravity, and there's an enormous amount of engineering wizardry involved," says David Kester, chief executive of the council, which recently awarded Heatherwick the coveted Prince Philip Prize. Flummoxed, the BBC referred to him simply as "the new Leonardo da Vinci" in a recent documentary. No matte? what the title-and Heatherwick, for the record, prefers designer-he has taken aim at the intersection of art, engineering, design, and architecture.
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