Dezeen Magazine

"It's not what you'd expect a particle accelerator to look like" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

In this movie filmed at our Designed in Hackney Day, Chris Hatherill from Hackney company Super/Collider speaks about how his team handcrafted a particle accelerator from hand-blown glass.

"A lot of science is design" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

Above: photograph of a nebula

He explains how the imagery that science generates can influence design, referencing "some of the beautiful colour palettes that designers, creatives, artists can take from the scientific world".

"A lot of science is design" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

Above: the Large Hadron Collider at Swiss research facility CERN

Hatherill also speaks about the design of scientific equipment and picks out the Large Hadron Collider, a machine built at Swiss facility CERN to answer questions about the universe, as one of his biggest sources of inspiration - see David Collard's photographs of the machine here. "Just every aspect of the design is so inspirational and beautiful, the fact that it is so scientific and so designed for purpose," Hatherill says.

"A lot of science is design" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

Above: the Large Hadron Collider at Swiss research facility CERN

The Super/Collider team and designer Patrick Stevenson Keating built a miniature particle accelerator from hand-blown glass during Salone de Mobile in Milan last year. "It was very organic and natural, exactly not what you'd expect a particle accelerator to look like," Hatherill says.

"A lot of science is design" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

Above: the handmade particle accelerator being assembled

Founded in 2006, Super/Collider is a not-for-profit collective which promotes science through the creative industries.

"A lot of science is design" - Chris Hatherill of Super/Collider

Above: the handmade particle accelerator on show at Salone de Mobile in Milan last April

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which was one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices.

To find out more about the other discussions from Designed in Hackney Day, see our highlights reported here. See more stories about design and architecture from Hackney here.