Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, CBE RA RDI HonFREng (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of about 250 architects, designers and entrepreneurs from his studio in King's Cross, London.

Heatherwick's projects, many of which have won design awards, include the UK pavilion at Expo 2010, the renovation of the Hong Kong Pacific Place, the Olympic cauldron for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, Vessel in New York City, and the New Routemaster bus. The Garden Bridge over the Thames in Central London was cancelled.

Heatherwick was born in London. His mother designed jewellery; his father was a musician, ran a charity and later worked for Heatherwick's design firm. His maternal great-grandfather was the owner of Jaeger, the London fashion firm, one of his grandmothers founded the textile studio at Marks & Spencer and was subsequently an art therapist, and his uncle was the journalist Nicholas Tomalin. After primary school in Wood Green, he attended the Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley, in Hertfordshire, which emphasises gardening, handcrafts, and the performance art of eurythmy, and Sevenoaks School in Kent. He studied three-dimensional design at Manchester Polytechnic and furniture design at the Royal College of Art (RCA). In his final year at RCA in 1994, Heatherwick met designer Terence Conran; after seeing Heatherwick's plan for a gazebo made of two curved stacks of birch plywood, Conran invited him to construct it at his country home, and bought it.

Heatherwick founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994 after his graduation from the RCA. Conran asked Heatherwick to make an interior display for the Conran Shop, which led to his first public commission after Mary Portas saw it and commissioned Heatherwick to make a window display for the 1997 London Fashion Week at the Harvey Nichols department store.

He is a Senior Fellow and external examiner at the Royal College of Art, a Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum; a fellow of the Royal Academy, and a Royal Designer for Industry. He has served on numerous judging and advisory panels and has given talks at institutions including the RIBA, Bartlett School of Architecture, the South Africa Design Indaba conference, the Royal Academy and TED2011.

In 2002, as part of a redevelopment of Paddington Basin, Heatherwick Studio designed The Rolling Bridge, a canal bridge that opens by curling into a circle rather than rising in one or more rigid sections. The Rolling Bridge won the 2005 British Constructional Steelwork Association's Structural Steel Award.

Heatherwick's design for B of the Bang, a £1.42 million 56m-high sculpture of 180 giant steel spikes, was unveiled outside the City of Manchester Stadium in 2005. The tallest public sculpture ever erected in Britain, it was commissioned to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and took its name from a quote from former Olympic sprint champion Linford Christie about the explosion of energy as a runner starts out of the blocks. Danny Boyle said it was the inspiration for his asking Heatherwick to design the Olympic cauldron.

However, technical problems caused one of the spikes to dislodge within two weeks, and a further 22 required removal over the next four years. Despite a plea from Angel of the North creator Anthony Gormley to Manchester City Council which described the sculpture as "remarkable, dynamic and engaging", it was dismantled and placed in storage in 2009. The council sued Heatherwick Studio and their subcontractors over the problems, settling out of court for £1.7m, and in 2012 the sculpture's core was sold for scrap.