How architecture can evoke emotions within people in places is one of the primary questions for British architect Thomas Heatherwick in designing buildings. The “Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness” exhibition shows how the architect and his team try to answer that question.

Heatherwick Studio has brought together some 30 projects carried out for the past 29 years evolving around the concept of “soulfulness.”

“When you are creating places, the intellect matters, the heart matters and also the hand matters. In projects, we are trying to think about craft more and thinking about emotion more, but also about ideas from the intellect,” Heatherwick said on Wednesday at Culture Station 284 in Seoul. Opened in 1925 and known as the old Seoul Station building, the space functions as a cultural complex.

The exhibition was co-curated by Suum Project based in Seoul and Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. After being shown in Tokyo until June 5, the exhibition has arrived in Seoul, along with the architect’s model for “Soundscape” on Nodeul Island, a large man-made island in the Han River. It is one of the designs entered in a Seoul city government project competition to redesign the island.

“Seoul has huge resource that you are not using enough of yet,” he said of Han River. “Normally in the mindset of people in a city, they feel the city is intense, you escape the city and you go to a countryside. I think there is an opportunity for Nodeul Island as a place you escape to."

Heatherwick and his team propose to transform the island into a dynamic destination for the celebration of music. “Soundscape” aims to introduce 6,000 square meters of new music space on the island that encompasses concerts to street performance for a variety of music genres, from classical to K-pop.

As an architect, he does not approach his job as “designing structures,” but rather as making places where people engage and that elicit the emotions of those visiting the place.

“We felt there is an opportunity not (just) about design, but to make a place that is more public and social,” he said of his proposal for Nodeul Island.

The exhibition consists of seven sections: coming together; experiencing sculptural space; feeling nature in urban space; connecting with everyone; bringing old to the future; playing and using; and samples and sketches.

The architect said Seoul is one of the most exciting cities at the moment compared other Asian cities.

“When I talked to people in London," Heatherwick said, "Where is the most exciting city in the world? Most people said, ‘Seoul.’"

"I think there is curiosity about Korea now more than ever before. You have been surprising the world with film, drama, music, food and art. It feels like there is a cultural energy,” he said.