Dan Pearson Studio

Yesterday we received the very sad news that our dear friend and colleague, Heidi, has died after living with cancer for the past 5 years. She was 47.

Heidi joined the company in 2007, immediately after completing her successful chemotherapy treatment for primary breast cancer. Last September Heidi was diagnosed with secondary bone cancer and stopped working to undertake further courses of chemo and radiotherapy.

She was an intensely positive and joyful person, and always looked for the good in people. The key thing she said in her job interview that made us want to hire her was, 'I love to find the beauty in the seemingly ugly.'

At work she was a talented and intuitive designer, with an immediate and natural rapport with Dan. She saw things in a very similar way to him and often pre-empted his design direction without prior consultation. A rare gift. She was particularly proud of our work at the London Maggie's Centre and was looking forward to working with Rogers Stirk and Harbour on a new cancer care centre at Guy's Hospital. The pictures of her here were taken by Dan on a site visit to the Hawaiian island of Kauai last June.

Often, on returning from a site visit, Heidi's first reports to the team were of the animals she had encountered; dogs, cats, sheep, pigs and ducks always got the lion's share of Heidi's attention. After one such visit she actually returned to London with two ducklings, which she managed to keep alive for longer than anticipated in her Lewisham garden.

If the atmosphere in the studio was downbeat for any reason Heidi's immediate response was, 'I think we all need a treat.', and so cakes, biscuits, chocolates, ice lollies or drinks were bought to lift our mood.  She was an old soul, with a childlike view of the world.

We all last saw Heidi on the day Huw took her to the Chelsea Flower Show. In spite of her frailty and the encumbrance of crutches Heidi spent 5 hours taking in the whole show. Her critiques of the show gardens and eye for a beautiful plant were, as ever, spot on.

Heidi's key qualities were empathy, compassion, kindness, wisdom, honesty and humour and she put a huge amount of all these into raising her three lovely children, Tallulah, Kitty and Spike.

Our thoughts are now with them, Heidi's mother, Linnette, and her wide circle of loving friends.

Heidi. We will miss you.