Bjarke Ingels Big-Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen : Audi Urban Future Initiative

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Bjarke Ingels

Bjarke Ingels Big-Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen

Bjarke Ingels is considered a shooting star of the international architecture scene. Together with the architects of the Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen, the 35-year-old Dane is currently developing projects in Kazakhstan, Mexico and numerous other countries. His unconventional designs stand out with their fresh approach to complex urban constellations, which are often resolved through simple means and propose new typologies. Ingels was an associate at the Office

for Metropolitan Architecture and co-founder of Plot Architects before founding his own practice with BIG in 2005. Among other awards, he received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004 and the World Architecture Festival Award in the housing category in 2008. He currently teaches at Columbia University in New York. With the apartment complexes “Mountain” Dwellings and “VM-House” in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen, BIG has transformed its vision of urban density in

the rural periphery into reality. Currently, the architects are building the Danish Pavilion at this year’s Expo in Shanghai. The building does justice to the theme “Better city – better life” in the form of a gigantic bicycle loop. At the heart of the structure, Copenhagen’s landmark the Little Mermaid thrones over a bath filled with water from the harbor of the Danish capital.

www.www.big.dk

Process		Video Interview		Final Concept
Big-Bjarke Ingels Group Process		Big-Bjarke Ingels Group Visiting Bjarke Ingels I Video Interview		Big-Bjarke Ingels Group Final Concept

Future Statements

What is the first thing that comes to your mind with regard to the topic “urban future”?
Yes – the future will be urban – our cities are our way as humans to refurbish the planet so it fits better to the way we want to live. Our cities don’t look the way they do because they have to – or because it’s their ‘natural’ state.

Do you have a personal idea of what this future could look like?
The future city will probably be surprisingly much like the city we live in now. Probably the majority of the buildings of the future city are already built.

On the other hand, it will probably be radically different on a lot of levels – in terms of use, movement and human life. The art of reinterpretation and appropriation operates much faster than political planning or concrete construction.

What is your impact as an architect or landscape architect on this topic?
It is our job as architects to observe how life in the city evolves – what new lifeforms emerge – and make sure that our cities provide the physical framework to accommodate all these new forms of life.

Do you think mobility concepts will change the future of the city, or do urban conditions change our concept of mobility?
Urban space and urban movement is like lifeform and habitat – they coevolve in a constant feedback loop where each part is constantly evolving to adjust to the other.

Projects

Big-Bjarke Ingels Group

XPO - Danish Pavillion
Shanghai EXPO
To be completed 2010

Big-Bjarke Ingels Group

REN - People's Building
Shanghai
Concept BIG + JDS

Big-Bjarke Ingels Group

MTN - The Mountain
Copenhagen
2008

Bjarke Ingels Big-Bjarke Ingels Group, Copenhagen

Process

Video Interview

Final Concept

Future Statements

Projects

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