In late 2010 the Heatherwick Studio were commissioned by LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) and Danny Boyle, artistic director of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, to design the Olympic Cauldron for the London 2012 Games. Designed as a moment rather than simply an object, the cauldron provided a memorable climax to the ceremony. 204 individually sculpted copper ‘petals’, each representing a participating country, were brought into the stadium during the athletes’ parade. Assembled into a radiating pattern at the heart of the growing crowd of athletes, these precious objects were each ignited by the Olympic torch. Watched by 90,000 people in the stadium, and an estimated global TV audience of 900 million, these petals were carried upwards on stems in concentric waves, converging to reveal a cauldron form with a unified flame.
The cauldron ‘moment’ provided an image which has proven to be one of the most significant, lasting memories of a bold opening ceremony which itself was both critically well-received and captured the public’s imagination. The Olympic Cauldron won Product Design of the Year at the 2012 Icon Magazine Awards, and was shortlisted for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year 2013.
This model is an exact scale replica of the Olympic cauldron. It was created by the Heatherwick Studio workshop for the V&A exhibition, ‘Heatherwick Studio: Designing The Extraordinary’.

Thomas Heatherwick is one of the most important creative practitioners working in the UK today. He has been a recipient of the Prince Philip Designers Prize and the London Design Medal, and in 2004 became the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry. At the heart of his Studio’s practice is a profound commitment to elegant, integrated design solutions and the absolute dedication to materials research, prototyping, industrial collaboration, tactility, texture – and above all, extraordinary form-making.
Having completed his MA at the Royal College of Art, Heatherwick established his Studio in 1994. Rejecting conventional classifications, his team explore the thresholds between standard design categories. Celebrating the pure joy of creating 3-dimensional forms, the Heatherwick Studio has earned an international reputation for creating works that span a breathtaking array of disciplines: from architecture, furniture, product design and fashion, to engineering, sculpture, transport and urban planning. The team’s work to date includes a spinning chair, a rolling bridge, an expandable zip bag, a power station, an ‘endless’ bench and a brand new bus for London.