Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Neil Thomas on building with bamboo.


Listen Later

Neil Thomas is the founder and director of Atelier One, one of the most creative engineering practices in the UK. The firm has worked on building projects such as Singapore Arts Centre, Federation Square in Australia, and Baltic in Gateshead, as well as with a hugely impressive roster of artists, including Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn and Rachel Whiteread. It has also created stages for stadium rock shows from Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, U2, and Take That, often in collaboration with architect, the late Mark Fisher.

The practice was the engineer behind the opening ceremony of London’s 2012 Olympic Games and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. While Neil also teaches at Yale and MIT.

Over recent years, he has developed a fascination with bamboo and was part of the team that created the award-winning Arc building, a community wellness space and gymnasium for the Green School campus in Bali.

In this episode we chat about: the role of a structural engineer; his ability to talk a number of design languages; the genesis of his obsession with bamboo and its extraordinary properties; overcoming bamboo’s image problem; giving up a teaching post at Yale to build with the material; wanting to be an engineer from childhood; the importance of David Bowie to his life; and, er, having a pony tail in his youth.

Support the show

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Material Matters with Grant GibsonBy Delizia Media

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

44 ratings


More shows like Material Matters with Grant Gibson

View all
Thinking Allowed by BBC Radio 4

Thinking Allowed

305 Listeners

Desert Island Discs by BBC Radio 4

Desert Island Discs

1,990 Listeners

The Food Programme by BBC Radio 4

The Food Programme

266 Listeners

Monocle on Design by Monocle

Monocle on Design

71 Listeners

The Audio Long Read by The Guardian

The Audio Long Read

832 Listeners

THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST by ADAM BUXTON

THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST

1,329 Listeners

The Week in Art by The Art Newspaper

The Week in Art

197 Listeners

Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast by David Zwirner

Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

407 Listeners

Time Sensitive by The Slowdown

Time Sensitive

152 Listeners

The Great Women Artists by Katy Hessel

The Great Women Artists

524 Listeners

Homing In by Matt Gibberd and The Modern House

Homing In

77 Listeners

Haptic & Hue by Jo Andrews

Haptic & Hue

282 Listeners

grow, cook, eat, arrange with Sarah Raven & friends by Sarah Raven

grow, cook, eat, arrange with Sarah Raven & friends

210 Listeners

The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein by Dan Rubinstein

The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein

253 Listeners

This Cultural Life by BBC Radio 4

This Cultural Life

105 Listeners