Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

$0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Humanise cover art

Humanise

By: Thomas Heatherwick
Narrated by: Thomas Heatherwick
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
activate_primeday_promo_in_buybox_DT

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Element cover art
Cities Are Good for You cover art
The Timeless Way of Building cover art
Why Architecture Matters cover art
Scary Smart cover art
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction cover art
The Aesthetic Brain cover art
Make Brilliant Work cover art
Why We Make Things and Why It Matters cover art
From What Is to What If cover art
Playing to the Gallery cover art
The Shaping of Us cover art
Iconicon cover art
The Geography of Genius cover art
How Creativity Rules the World cover art
The Longing for Less cover art

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

In this manifesto for change, one of the world's pre-eminent designers explores how buildings and cities around the world lost their soul - and what we can do about it.

Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and 'efficiency' has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn't have to be this way: there are other ways to build - with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us.

Heatherwick draws on his own work, the ideas of other experts in the field, and recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to offer both a case against the inhumanity of modernist design and a rallying cry to everyone to imagine the world anew. Looking through his eyes, we take in places around the world, old and new, famous and obscure, that can sap the life out of us - or nourish our senses and our psyche.

Humanise is a tautly argued provocation and an urgent call-to-arms to make the world around us a far better place for everyone to live.

©2023 Thomas Heatherwick (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that." (Grayson Perry)

"Humanise is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here." (Alain de Botton)

What listeners say about Humanise

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Really a movement to be part on!

Brilliant and well written book.Top 10 must read when you decided to be an Architect.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Intelligence, courage and purpose

I enjoyed the unfolding of the well-reasoned argument read by Heatherwick himself in his characterful voice. I felt the passion against our obsession with sanctifying ‘The Market’ which has resulted in (a lot of cases) bare minimum functional architecture.

Hopefully this book will ignite a movement of people celebrating the humanity in making beautiful and functional things.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This book helped me FEEL hopeful and nurtured

When I think of creativity as ‘thinking outside the box’ Heatherwick’s work comes come to my mind. I now really admire his boldness in challenging the current practice in architecture and am hopeful towards this new movement!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!