Roca continues to strengthen its mission to promote contemporary design and designers on a global scale with its collaboration in Shanghai Design Week, together with the multi-award-winning British design and architecture studio Heatherwick Studios. Building Soulfulness is an in-depth exhibition curated by Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan), showcasing over 30 projects by Heatherwick Studio, demonstrating the studio’s passion for hand-crafted objects and the potential of design to make every day better.

Building Soulfulness features a unique collaboration between Roca and Heatherwick Studio that explores some of Roca’s proprietary materials, including Fineceramic® and Stonex®. In a dynamic wall installation, the British design studio composed a collage-like display using parts of the Ona washbasin, Inspira washbasin and Ariane bathtub to highlight their smooth forms, surfaces and shapes. This demonstrates the potential of these materials to create beautiful designs in the bathroom. Heatherwick said: “We have chosen to display [Roca’s] products as a visual totem to celebrate the purity and elegance of the silhouette of the forms they create for bathrooms worldwide.”

Located in the Bund Finance Center, an exciting mixed-use space designed by Heatherwick Studios and Foster + Partners in 2017, the exhibition aims to inspire a new generation of designers and cultivate ideas for the future. It features scale models, objects and sketches that provide insight into Thomas Heatherwick’s vision and distinctive approach to architecture and design. Speaking about the exhibition, Thomas Heatherwick said: “I feel such a synergy with Shanghai because when we built the Seed Cathedral for the amazing World Expo in 2012, my studio’s career became supercharged. Now, in honour of our debt to Shanghai, I have the opportunity to share many of the lessons I’ve learned over 30 years of practice.”

Through Building Soulfulness, Roca and Heatherwick Studio invite audiences to embark on a journey of innovation and imagination, fostering a dialogue that transcends boundaries and shapes the future of design. Roca also participated in the opening forum on 16 January as part of Shanghai Design Week, with discussions on urban polyphony and sustainable development. Roca China’s Managing Director, Mr. Guillem Pages, engaged in a roundtable discussion on the creation of innovative urban spaces.

Building Soulfulness from January 17 to March 14 2024, at the Bund Finance Center, Shanghai, China