Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN’s “The Next List” features the bold and innovative ideas of Bjarke Ingels, focusing on the West 57th project that is transforming Manhattan skyline. Ingels states, “In the big picture, architecture is the art and science of making sure that our cities and buildings fit the way we want to live our lives.” The video also features comments from Robert A. M. Stern, Dean at Yale School of Architecture, and Douglas Durst, the developer of West 57th. Check it out!

Reference: CNN

In this video Bjarke Ingels shares his enlightened view on Hedonistic sustainability, challenging the misconception that one must give up a portion of their comfortable lifestyle in order to live sustainability. Ingels counteracts that delusion with examples that illustrate the possibilities of sustainable buildings and cities increasing life quality. He encourages architects to embrace their expanded roles of becoming “designers of ecosystems” by creating a world where our presence is not seen as detrimental to our environment through the integration of our “consumption patterns and leftovers” into our natural world. Ingels is optimistic as he shares Hollywood’s copy of BIG’s Denmark Pavilion for the Shanghai 2010 Expo in Iron Man 2. Ingels states, “If Hollywood starts ripping off sustainable architecture to portray science fiction it could be a sign we are moving towards Hedonistic sustainability.”

Reference: TEDxEast

'Mountain Dwellings' by architect, Bjarke Ingels

WSJ. Magazine recently announced its inaugural Innovator of the Year Awards, honoring the most creative, disruptive, and influential individuals in the world today. In conjunction with the November issue of WSJ., seven winners will be honored at a dinner on Thursday, October 27, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The November issue of WSJ. will hit newsstands on Saturday, October 29, as part of WSJ Weekend.

The winners of the 2011 WSJ. Magazine’s Innovator of the Year Awards are: Ai Weiwei (Art); Katie Grand (Fashion); Elon Musk (Technology); Bjarke Ingels (Architecture); Steve Ells (Food); Joris Laarman (Design); and The Giving Pledge, founded by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (Philanthropy). More information on the awards after the break. read more »

Bjarke Ingels is the founding partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), which he started in 2005. You can check his projects right here.

The lecture will take place this Thursday, March 3 at 7:30 pm. Presented by LACMA and the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles; organized by Francesca Garcia-Marques, Hon. AIA/LA and Ann Videriksen, Hon. AIA/LA.

For more information go to the event’s official website.

Bjarke Ingels recently appeared on CNN’s series Big Idea, very fitting for his architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group or BIG. Utilizing the firm’s website, Ingels turns it into a presentation tool, and with ease discusses the design process, sharing diagrams and photographs for four of their projects:  Mountain Dwellings, their submission to the Shanghai Expo complete with video of Ingels himself riding through the Danish Pavilion, the recently unveiled designs for West 57th in New York City, and the winning design for a new Waste-to-Energy plan in Denmark.   The quick, straightforward, and stylish presentation beckons the question, is there still a place for powerpoint?

Bjarke Ingels, award winning Danish architect and author and recently winner of our Building of the Year Award in the Cultural category, will deliver a lecture to NewSchool of Architecture and Design (NSAD) students on his architecture and how the evolution of political, economic, and social issues in today’s society is manifested in architecture designs.

The insightful and at times humorous presentation, “YES is More”, will highlight the evening presentation, Friday, February 25 at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park. For more information on this lecture, please click here.

Courtesy of BIG

In the past few years, Bjarke Ingels’ architecture has slowly, but steadily, been gaining international attention. From housing projects to commercial entities to design ideas, Northern European countries have found themselves host to an abundance of angular geometries, bold forms, and straightforward approaches characteristic of Ingels. As we reported early last week, BIG will now take its signature style to Manhattan with a not-so-typical response for the design of a New York apartment building for client Durst Fetner Residential (be sure to read our coverage here).

After the excitement of seeing BIG’s fresh architectural idea respond to the character and context of New York, now, the harsh reality of board meetings and zoning regulations are the project’s next obstacle to overcome in the quest for final approval.

More about W57th’s approval process after the break. read more »

Courtesy of BIG

The awkwardly shaped large site at West Side Highway and 57th Street is about to get a whole lot more attention. Bjarke Ingels and BIG will finally make their architectural debut in North America, with an unusual apartment building design in none other than New York City. The asymmetrical peak almost pyramid in shape is the result of blending the mismatched forms of a typical Manhattan tower podium and a low-rise apartment block European in style.

BIG’s reinvention of the ‘New York apartment building’ somehow is able to check all of the boxes, providing a connection to the waterfront and the Hudson River Park, acknowledging the surrounding context both in relationship to building size and neighbors’ views, and alleviating traffic noise. The leafy green courtyards that pop up within this new residential typology help to balance a steeply sloped facade, 450-feet at its peak. Designed for client Durst Fetner Residential, the building offers both a cultural and commercial program and will accommodate 600 residential units varying in size.

Follow the break for the architect’s description and more photographs.

Architects: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
Location: Manhattan, New York, USA
Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels
Project Leader: Beat Schenk
Project Architect: Sören Grünert
Project Team: Thomas Christoffersen, Celine Jeanne, Daniel Sundlin, Alessandro Ronfini, Aleksander Tokarz, Alessio Valmori, Alvaro Garcia Mendive, Felicia Guldberg, Gabrielle Nadeau, Ho Kyung Lee, Julian Liang, Julianne Gola, Lucian Racovitan, Marcela Martinez, Maria Nikolova, Minjae Kim, Mitesh Dixit, Nicklas Rasch, Riccardo Mariano, Stanley Lung, Steffan Heath, Thilani Rajarathna, Xu Li
Architect of Record: SLCE Architects
Landscape Architects: Starr Whitehouse
Structural: Thornton Tomasetti
MEP: Dagher Engineering
Civil: Langan Engineering
Construction Manager: Hunter Roberts
Transportation: Philip Habib & Assoc.
Building Envelope: Israel Berger & Assoc.
Marketing: Nancy Packes
Vertical Transportation: Van Deusen & Assoc.
Acoustical: Cerami & Assoc.
Wind: CPP
Environmental: AKRF
Client: Durst Fetner Residential
Project Area: 870,000 sqf
Renderings & Animation: German Glessner

read more »

Yes is more: an archicomic on architectural evolution – Bjarke Ingels presents his extraordinary architecture in cartoon-form

Selecting the most outstanding projects in sustainable construction from several thousand submissions will be the challenging task of more than fifty leading experts on sustainability. The jury members for the 3rd International Holcim Awards competition include architects Bjarke Ingels (Denmark), Keller Easterling (USA) and Michel Rojkind (Mexico) – all independent experts of international stature engaged in the sustainable development of society, building processes, construction materials, and building projects.

Entries in the USD 2 million competition are evaluated using five “target issues” to define sustainable construction. Three of these stem from the triple bottom line of balanced social, environmental and economic performance. The two remaining issues pay homage to contextual and aesthetic impact, along with innovation and transferability. A series of five jury panels will meet in June/July 2011 in each of the five world regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

read more »

Bjarke Ingels (BIG) conference at ETSAM in Madrid, which took place on Oct 6th.

Video by Jorge from mstrpln blog.

Recent BIG projects featured at AD:

• BIG’s proposal for the Audi Urban Future Award
• LOOP City
• 8 House
• Denmark Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010
• MNBAQ Extension Competition entry (With Fugere Architectes)
• Mountain Dwellings (with JDS)
• P.S.1 2010 competition entry
• Faroe Islands Education Center
• World Village of Women Sports
• Shenzhen International Energy Mansion
• National Library in Astana, Kazakhstan
• Tallin City Hall
• Tamayo Museum (with Rojkind Architects)
• Kaufhauskanal Metrozone  (with Topotek1)
• Zira Island Carbon Neutral master plan

Our friend Cliff Kuang, editor of Co.Design, sat down with Bjarke Ingels after his (second) arrival to NY. During the interview, Bjarke talks about his new teaching position at Harvard GSD, focused on the potential of the 2016 Olympics and the 2014 World Cup for Rio de Janeiro. They also talk about BIG’s National Library in Kazakhstan, and hint us on a new project currently in the boards for Manhattan, a “cross breed [between] the perimeter block and the high rise, to allow a communal garden in the heart of a building”, a building that we really want to see more about.

CK: It seems like things might be a lot different here, than in your home country. What can New York teach a young architect like yourself?

BI: As an architect, you’re always trying to accommodate different interests in a single building, from the residents to the developers to the city planning officials. In Manhattan, the density makes that even more extreme, and there’s something in the American culture about bringing together competing interest groups. I mean, this is the country that invented surf & turf! I mean, steak and lobster! What other country would thing to combine those two extremes? I sense some interesting possibilities here.

CK: A lot of your buildings — such as the 8 House apartments and the Mountain Dwellings project, or the Astana National Library and the Danish pavilion look like evolutions of a theme. Is that part of BIG trying to develop an aesthetic, or a signature?

BI: No, we don’t have a commitment to certain forms or styles. But as we develop stuff we learn how things relate and connect, and we learn how those forms can be reinterpreted to create new possibilities. So for example, the basic form of the 8 House, which allowed both a courtyard and views and a sloping green roof, has become in TED [pictured below] which attempts to bring street life up to the level of the penthouse.

It’s a bit like in nature how some fish developed bigger flippers that could be used as legs. It’s not like the fins had a purpose for walking, but through an act of relocation and misinterpretations, they became legs. A major part of design evolution is that things developed for one purpose can be used in other ways. And that’s why you see diversity and continuity in design.

Read the whole interview at Co.Design »

Photo Courtesy of BIG

BIG has proven in the past to be a source of innovating projects. Their idea is far beyond the superficial: it´s about improving the city, as you can see on this presentation by Bjarke Ingels for 8 House.

For this project -which will open in October-, BIG has been honored by the Scandinavian Green Roof Association as the Best Green Roof in the Scandinavia for its 1.700 m2 sloping green roof at an award ceremony held at 8 House in Oerestad, Copenhagen.

More information about this award after the break. read more »

We have seen the Danish pavilion on its conceptual stage, during construction, completed and finally opened to the public.

And now we got the chance to “ride” it with Bjarke Ingels from BIG, and get a closer look at the experience that the giant loop of the pavilion offers to the visitors, to have a little taste of the danish way of life.

Quick video friday, Bjarke Ingels at TED talks. You can download an iPhone/iPod friendly version here.