NEWS

The programming and development of Aarhus Ø’s Bassin 7 pier has been awarded the City’s highest honor for its exceptional attention to scale, architectural quality, and contribution to the built environment.

Asked to masterplan the entire island on the decommissioned pier in 2013, we worked together with Gehl Architects in designing the public spaces first and turning the leftover areas into plots for commercial and residential developments, secondly. Today, a public promenade activates the entire waterfront, zig-zagging along the pier and defining a series of new public spaces on land and on water.

Of the realized projects from the masterplan, SLETH’s residential project Karréerne as well as BIG’s Kampanilen and the Urban Life Huts are emphasized for how they consider the street level and frame a comfortable public space with views of the city, and shelter from the wind.

In its motivation, the Head of the Jury, City Architect Anne Mette Boye, further stated: “The work has been consistently and carefully done to develop the area over time as a welcoming destination for the residents of Aarhus as well as visitors. It is a great example of urban development where architectural approaches to buildings and urban spaces come together harmoniously. Even on a rainy November day, there’s a vibrant urban life.“

BIG’s Founder and Creative Director Bjarke Ingels was invited to speak at Stanford University’s School of Engineering and Doerr School of Sustainability in California for the inaugural Shimizu Distinguished Lecture. He spoke to attendees about BIG’s Plan for Planet initiative and how a carbon-neutral planet could be achieved, while addressing the fundamental challenges of modern living.

The Shimizu Distinguished Lecture series focuses on construction, sustainable design, architecture and related fields, and is supported by the Shimizu Corporation, which enables Stanford’s Civil & Environmental Engineering department to promote international collaboration between academia and industry by welcoming visitors who make distinctive contributions to civil or environmental engineering.

Forbes features BIG’s 8 House in their guide to experience the best of Danish design in Copenhagen. Completed in 2010, the mixed-use development combines three different types of residential housing as well as 10,000 m2 of retail and offices, organized around two smaller, more intimate courtyards. The complete structure is connected by a continuous green promenade and cycling path running from the ground to the 10th floor, which merges the calmness of suburban life with the energetic community of a big city.

A recent Dezeen article reveals new images of the nearly completed exteriors of One High Line, located in Manhattan’s West Chelsea neighborhood. BIG’s twisting towers occupy a full city block between the High Line Park and the Hudson River, and are in good company near residential buildings by Jean Nouvel, Thomas Heatherwick, Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano.

“The whole philosophy is that from this point of departure, the two towers tried to be good neighbors to each other,” Ingels told Dezeen. “It requires certain adjustments of proportions; those proportions trickled down and end up creating all these moments.”

The sculptural geometry of the two towers at One High Line is a direct response to their dense context. At the base, the two towers pull away from each other and the neighboring buildings to maximize urban space and views. The twisting geometry at the corners of the towers reduces the overall bulk of the buildings and creates additional separation between them. The façade design is inspired by the punched windows seen in the historic warehouses of the Meatpacking and West Chelsea neighborhoods.

Alex Witkoff, co-CEO of the Witkoff Group, spoke to Mansion Global about how New York’s West Chelsea neighborhood has defied the housing market slump and how its definition of luxury sets it apart in Manhattan.

Alex also addresses how One High Line fits into its environment: “The neighborhood is almost like a Pritzker Prize-winning area at this point. There are residential buildings by Jean Nouvel, Thomas Heatherwick, Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano. We had the luxury of working with the best in architecture with Bjarke Ingels for One High Line. The project occupies a full city block between the High Line and the Hudson River in one of downtown Manhattan’s best locations. The High Line is just downstairs, and Hudson River Park is across the street. The project was carefully designed to take advantage of the unique site and contribute to the lived experience in West Chelsea.”

One High Line, designed by BIG, will feature 236 residences and a 120-key Faena New York hotel in a pair of twisting towers that encompass a full city block between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, offering stunning views of the Hudson River and city skyline.

CityLife, the major urban development project in Milan, Italy, made history by becoming the first urban area globally to achieve three prestigious international sustainability certifications at the Platinum level: LEED for Cities and Communities, WELL Community Standard, and SITES for Existing Landscapes. CityLife is the first project in Europe to achieve SITES certification at any level, and the first in the world to obtain the Platinum level. These certifications, which serve as reference points for sustainable urban planning, recognize CityLife’s commitment to environmentally conscious practices.

CityWave, the fourth and final development within Milan’s CityLife, aims to complete the existing context rather than compete with it. BIG’s design for the commercial project envisions two individual buildings connected by a 140-meter canopy roof with photovoltaic panels – one of Europe’s largest PV-paneled roofs – forming a generous shaded public realm as the entrance to CityLife. CityWave’s completion is slated for 2026.

In an article about luxury fashion brands’ quests to diversify their offerings, ELLE Mexico highlights five companies that have launched into the hospitality industry, including Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet with its BIG-designed Hôtel des Horlogers.

Watchmaking, architecture and nature are celebrated at Hôtel des Horlogers, which zigzags through the Vallée de Joux town just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. The 8,700 square-metre hotel marks the second collaboration between BIG and Audemars Piguet, following the opening of the neighbouring Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet in 2020. The hotel’s design features tilting slabs made of pared-back timber and concrete that complement the natural landscape enveloping the building. Amenities include a spa, conference center and three restaurants overseen by three-Michelin-starred French chef Emmanuel Renaut.

As part of its annual guide on where to travel in the upcoming year, Condé Nast Traveler named Quito, Ecuador on its list of the best places to go in Central and South America in 2024. Quito, the capital of Ecuador, makes the list for its new architecture – including the BIG-designed IQON – and new metro system debuting at the end of 2023.

“The city’s mile-high skyline got a lot higher thanks to the work of architects like Bjarke Ingels Group, whose 32-story IQON tower (completed in 2022) is now the city’s tallest. It’s just one of several projects to come from Ecuadorian development firm Uribe Schwarzkopf, in its ongoing effort to mature the ancient Andean city into an unlikely new hub of contemporary architecture,” writes Adam Graham.

Traditionally a sprawling city of dense low-rise buildings, the skyline of Quito was re-imagined following the relocation of the city-center airport over a decade ago. With the skyline able to grow upwards for the first time, Uribe Schwarzkopf worked with BIG to realize a new contemporary identity for the city. The 130-meter, 32-story IQON stands as the tallest residential building in the Ecuadorian capital, designed as a vertical community and an extension of the neighboring La Carolina Park.

Danish construction media Licitationen honors the project development of the Aarhus Harbor Masterplan for its effort in developing the formerly closed, industrial harbor into a new, lively waterfront in Aarhus. The award is given each year to one or more companies, which have succeeded in both planning and realizing a project or neighborhood with a sensitivity to its context. 

Designed in collaboration with Gehl Architects in 2013, the Aarhus Harbor masterplan was realized together with Kilden & Hindby, Bassin 7 Bolig, Bassin 7 Erhverv, Aarhus Municipality and SLETH Architects, and includes the BIG-designed AARhus Residences, Aarhus Theatre, the Beach Huts, the Urban Life huts, Aarhus Harbor Bath, and Kampanilen as well as SLETH’s Karéerne. The final addition to the masterplan will be the 18-storey Wellness Hotel, which broke ground earlier this year. 

In its motivation, the Jury explains: “The project stands out and has, with great luck and creativity, succeeded in transforming a formerly closed and inaccessible container port into a new active district in the heart of Aarhus.”

BIG’s design for the Gare du Pont de Bondy station is exhibited at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris as part of the exhibition “Metro! Greater Paris on the move”. The exhibition retraces and combines the history of the Paris metro with the future network of the Grand Paris Express and will run until June 2nd, 2024. 

Inspired by the Parisian tradition of utilizing bridges as social spaces and cultural landmarks, Gare du Pont de Bondy is conceived as both a bridge and tunnel wrapped around a giant atrium, connecting the riverbank to the train landing. 

Austrian news media Der Standard features CopenHill in a story on how Denmark can inspire others in the green transition. The project is highlighted as an example of BIG’s notion of hedonistic sustainability and explores how reducing environmental impact can increase quality of life. 

The Türkiye Design Council has brought together a team of global and local architects to start the long-term process of revitalising the historic province of Hatay, situated in southern Türkiye, following the devastating earthquake in February 2023.

Thirteen practices composed of leading experts in architecture, design, engineering, environmental sustainability, culture, heritage and archaeology – including BIG, Foster + Partners and Turkish practices DB Architects and KEYM – will work towards a vision for a more resilient, sustainable and liveable Hatay, while preserving the province’s 2,300-year-old cultural heritage and identity.

Eleven years after Hurricane Sandy devastated many parts of New York City, Curbed reporter Christopher Bonanos toured Manhattan’s eastern coast with Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and its chief climate officer, to learn more about New York’s resiliency developments along the East River. The different projects along the coast primarily stem from the BIG U – BIG’s resiliency plan meant to protect 10 miles of continuous low-lying geography that compromise an incredibly dense, vibrant and vulnerable urban area.

One of the projects that came out of the BIG U, the East Side Coastal Resiliency project, completed its first section at Stuyvesant Cove Park in September 2023. The full project, designed by BIG and led by NYC Department of Design & Construction, is scheduled for completion by 2026.

BIG Founder and Creative Director Bjarke Ingels is featured on The Economist’s first ever Weekend Intelligence podcast episode, which focuses on outer space. Throughout the episode, The Economist’s Jessica Camille Aguirre contemplates living on the moon, interviewing – alongside Bjarke – NASA engineers, astronauts and 3D-printing construction company ICON’s Co-Founder and CEO Jason Ballard.

“Ingels and Ballard believe that exploration is a fundamental part of the human impulse – that it can explain history and how we built the societies we have,” remarks Aguirre in the episode. “To them, it’s also existential. They think that the future of humanity depends on continuing to find new frontiers, including physical frontiers off this planet.”

The BIG-designed Ocean House Palm Jumeirah was named a winner in the International Property Awards 2023 in the category Architecture Multiple Residence Dubai (Africa & Arabia).

The awards celebrate the highest levels of achievement by companies operating in all sectors of the property industry.

Nestled into the Northeast crescent of Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, Ocean House, designed by BIG and developed by Palm Northacre and Ellington Properties, will be a standalone multifamily residential building that will take a pivotal role in reshaping the waterfront of this ever-evolving archipelago. Redefining conventional luxury by merging the vernacular villa with the high-rise urban block, BIG’s vision for Ocean House is to create an iconic urban presence while offering the comfort and experience of a home in nature. The building’s design concept resembles a vertical garden village, where all four facades are wrapped by balconies, offering generous outdoor space and panoramic views over the Dubai skyline.

The 7,000 m2 factory and visitor center, The Plus, has officially achieved the BREEAM Outstanding Certification, the leading environmental standard, as the first building of its type. Designed for furniture manufacturer Vestre, The Plus is comprised from local timber, low-carbon concrete, and recycled steel. Dedicated to the cleanest carbon-neutral fabrication of urban furniture in the world, The Plus’ energy consumption is 60% lower than equivalent conventional factories, while releasing 55% less greenhouse gases than similar buildings.

“Constructed from locally-sourced timber and running on local hydropower, the beauty of The Plus is in the clarity of its organization. Conceived as the intersection of a road and a production line, it forms a big plus shape that connects all aspects of manufacturing. The radical transparency invites visitors and hikers to enjoy the whole process of creation while providing Vestre’s team with the thrill of working in the middle of the forest. To us, The Plus is a crystal-clear example of Hedonistic Sustainability – showing us how our sustainable future will not only be better for the environment, but also more beautiful to work in and more fun to visit.” says Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner and Creative Director, BIG.

The Spiral officially opened its doors in Manhattan. Located on West 34th Street between Hudson Boulevard and 10th Avenue, The Spiral neighbors the elevated High Line and Bella Abzug Park on Manhattan’s west side, extending the parks’ green space up and around its exterior in a spiraling motion towards the sky – from the High Line to the skyline.

Developed by Tishman Speyer and built by Turner, the commercial high-rise was designed by BIG in collaboration with Adamson Associates and structural engineer WSP Cantor Seinuk. The tower measures 66 stories and 2.8 million square feet, reaching a height of 1,031.5 feet. The tower is BIG’s first completed supertall, and first completed commercial high-rise in New York.

“The Spiral punctuates the northern end of the High Line, and the linear park appears to carry through into the tower, forming an ascending ribbon of lively green spaces, extending the High Line to the skyline. The Spiral combines the classic Ziggurat silhouette of the premodern skyscraper with the slender proportions and efficient layouts of the modern high-rise. Designed for the people who occupy it, The Spiral ensures that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors, creating hanging gardens and cascading atria that connect the open floor plates from the ground floor to the summit into a single uninterrupted workspace. The string of terraces wrapping around the building expands the daily life of the tenants to the outside air and light. As the trees and grasses, flowers and vines have taken root over the last two summers, The Spiral is slowly becoming an ascending ribbon of green wrapping around the entire silhouette of the tower – like a 1000-foot-tall vine at the scale of the city’s skyline.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, BIG

BIG’s CEO Sheela Sogaard joins the Jury for the Danish IMPACT Awards 2024. The awards program was launched last year by Denmark’s largest digital business media FINANS and KPGM, to showcase Danish companies working with sustainability within the fields of climate impact, social responsibility, and governance.

Sheela joins the Jury alongside CEO of Carlsberg Jacob Aarup Andersen, CEO of Grundfos Poul Due Jensen, Country Director at Google Denmark Bianca Bruun, and Group CEO of Nykredit Tonny Thierry Andersen among others.

BIG Founder and Creative Director Bjarke Ingels was interviewed on Architectural Record’s DESIGN:ED podcast alongside Texas hotelier Liz Lambert. During the episode, they talk about the redevelopment of El Cosmico in Marfa, how their partnership with ICON is redefining construction and design through 3D-printing, and Bjarke’s hopes for designing on the moon.

“These [3D-printed] projects may be small in themselves, but there is the potential for an incredible impact on the future of affordable housing: to pioneer the future of construction with additive manufacturing, and maybe build the first permanent human habitat on the moon. What we are trying to do with Liz is to re-explore the repertoire that comes available with 3D printing. Complex and curvilinear geometries that would be hard to control with masons and blueprints suddenly become available in a completely different way.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, BIG

Architectural Record’s DESIGN:ED podcast is hosted by Austin, Texas–based architect Aaron Prinz, and provides an inside look into the field of architecture told from the perspective of individuals that are leading the industry.

BIG projects CapitaSpring and The Spiral were both announced as winners of CTBUH Awards of Excellence 2023 at the ceremony held in Singapore on October 18th. CapitaSpring has won the award in two categories – Best Tall Building 200-299 Meters and Best Tall Building Asia – and The Spiral has won the award in the category of Best Tall Building 300-399 Meters.

Designed jointly by BIG and CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati in collaboration with RSP, the 280-meter-tall CapitaSpring reinforces Singapore’s reputation as a garden city. As the second tallest tower in Singapore, the 51-storey mixed-use development continues the city’s pioneering vertical urbanism at the heart of the Central Business District.

Located at the intersection of the elevated High Line Park and the newly developed Hudson Boulevard Park on Manhattan’s west side, The Spiral rises 66 storeys and extends the parks’ green space up and around its exterior in a spiraling motion towards the sky – from the High Line to the skyline.

The New York Times has announced that BIG is leading the design of Freedom Plaza, the plan for a Midtown Manhattan development featuring two residential towers with affordable units; a 1,200-room hotel; new retail and dining establishments on the street level; a museum dedicated to democracy with slabs of the Berlin Wall on display; 4.7 acres of public, waterfront green space; and an underground casino from Mohegan.

If the project’s developer, the Soloviev Group, is granted one of the three state gambling licenses up for grabs in and around New York City, the project would be built on a plot of vacant land along First Avenue between East 38th and East 41st Streets. With the inclusion of 1,325 apartments – nearly 40 percent of which would be offered permanently below market-rate rent – the project would create more affordable housing than has been built in Midtown East from 2010 to 2020.

BIG’s Product team designs the Nawabari furniture family in collaboration with Danish interior brand, BoConcept, consisting of two sofa sizes, an armchair, two coffee tables and two pouffe sizes. The collection is inspired by the Japanese art form of binding with ropes to forge close bonds. ‘Nawa’ means rope in Japanese, and the term “Nawabari” traditionally translates as stretching rope.

“When starting out with this collection we were looking for a new way of expressing furniture. We were interested in the forms that are created when a material is bound with rope. The result is these sculptural organic shapes that form the core of this furniture family.” – Jakob Lange, Partner & Head of BIG Products

Located on the grounds of the former International Airport in Athens, Greece, Park Rise will stand as the centerpiece of the residential neighborhood Little Athens, sitting within Europe’s largest urban regeneration project, the Ellinikon Masterplan. The 50-meter-tall building will be home to 88 one- to five-bedroom residences across five building cores: two will rise to five floors, two will rise to eight floors, and one will rise to twelve floors. Nestled amidst Greece’s striking scenery, Ellinikon Park Rise will offer views of the Aegean Sea on one side and the mountains of Attica on the other. The project is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.

“With Park Rise, we wish to challenge the traditional residential high-rise building and propose a cascade of individual homes each with their private garden, stacked to align with the neighborhood towards the north and growing gradually towards the tower peaks of the Metropolitan Park in the east. The building embraces the proximity to the Park while maximizing panoramic views of the Mediterranean Sea, inviting in the Athenian mountain- and seascapes through generous terraces, framed by vegetation and trees to offer biophilia, privacy and shade.” – João Albuquerque, Partner, BIG

BIG’s Landscape Partner Giulia Frittoli spoke at Utopian Hours, the international festival for urban innovation in Torino, Italy. Gathering urban planners, activists, and architects from all over the world, the Utopian Hours conference explored the topics of urban issues and innovation under this year’s theme “Manifesto for a New City Making”. Presenting BIG LEAPP, Giulia spoke of BIG’s integrated design approach and how we combine the efforts of our Landscape, Architecture, Engineering, Product design and Planning teams when giving form to the future of cities around the world.

The Mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, joined the BIG NYC team, including Partner Daniel Sundlin and Associate Jeremy Siegel, for a tour of the East Side Coastal Resiliency project, part of the broader BIG U initiative. The 2.5-mile project area is located within the FEMA 100-year floodplain and spans from Montgomery Street to East 25th Street. The project is designed to reduce risk and improve the resiliency of more than 110,000 New Yorkers as well as critical infrastructure including schools, libraries and an electrical substation that powers much of Lower Manhattan. This was the second time that BIG had the honor of hosting Mayor Oh Se-hoon, as he visited the BIG HQ in Copenhagen and toured several project sites there in March 2023.

As BIG’s proposal for Rebuild by Design – an initiative by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that called for innovative design solutions to increase resiliency of Sandy-impacted communities – the BIG U is a protective system running around Manhattan from West 57th Street south to The Battery and up to East 40th Street: 10 continuous miles of low-lying geography that comprise an incredibly dense, vibrant and vulnerable urban area. The multivalent ‘U’ consists of multiple but linked design opportunities, each on different scales of time, size and investment, with each local neighborhood tailoring its own set of programs, functions and opportunities.

BIG leads the build design for the UAE Pavilion “Nurturing Legacy” at Expo 2023 Doha. Designed by BIG’s Landscape, Engineering, Architecture and Products teams, in collaboration with Atelier Brückner, the pavilion and its gardens invite the visitors on a journey of ingenuity and innovation that shares the story of the UAE’s inseparable bonds with nature. The design is inspired by the resilient Ghaf tree and its complex root net, creating an architectural cell structure featuring Rammed Earth Walls, wooden beams and palm leaves roofs. The structure frames the interior exhibition space and is surrounded by 32 gardens of indigenous species, while limestone rocks are used as paving surfaces.

The UAE Pavilion at Expo 2023 Doha is administered by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation and the National Projects Office. It serves as a platform to bring together people and innovations to address issues facing humanity through multi-sensory guest experiences and storytelling, content curation, and programming guided by the core values of ambition and humanity, optimism and resilience, authenticity, and openness. Expo Doha 2023 is open daily to the public and will run until 28 March 2024.

BIG NYC Partner Daniel Sundlin joined a panel talk organized by Solar One to discuss the future of sustainability and resiliency at Scandinavia House in New York City. The thought-provoking conversation focused on the power of cutting-edge design to drive environmental sustainability and reshape the future of sustainable architecture. Daniel was joined by Kate Selden, solar policy analyst of Solar One; Jared Della Valle, CEO of Alloy Development; and Elijah Hutchinson, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice.

Designed by BIG in collaboration with Silman Structural Engineers and Cosentini Associates, the upcoming Solar One Environmental Education Center in Stuyvesant Cove Park – within the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project – will be a home for environmental learning and innovation. The center will offer educational programming on New York’s ecology in a structure designed to withstand flooding events and provide life-saving recharging capabilities during power outages.

Several of BIG’s 3D-printed projects are included in an episode of 60 Minutes, America’s most-watched newsmagazine show, about construction technology company ICON. During the segment, ICON’s founder Jason Ballard is interviewed on topics such as 3D-printing, building on the moon and the future of housing.

The BIG-designed projects featured on the episode include El Cosmico, an upcoming 3D-printed hotel in Marfa, Texas; Wolf Ranch, a collection of 3D-printed homes currently under construction in Austin, Texas; and a collaboration with ICON, SEArch+ and NASA known as Project Olympus, a lunar habitat set to be the first human foray into extra-terrestrial construction.

Germany’s most widely read magazine, Stern, interviewed Bjarke Ingels for an in-depth story on New York City, including its recent new developments and what’s ahead.

In the interview, Bjarke talks about New York’s dynamic energy, its ever-changing skyline and what makes the city so unique. Several of BIG’s NYC projects are highlighted in the article as well, including commercial building The Spiral, located in Hudson Yards; One High Line, which will be composed of residential units and a hotel; and the mixed-use River Ring development on the Williamsburg riverfront, which will seek to elevate the standard for urban waterfront resiliency and transform the way New Yorkers interact with the East River.

The Västerås Municipal Council has approved the zoning plan for the Västerås Travel Center which will connect the entire city’s infrastructure under one roof. The Västerås Travel Center celebrates movement and creates a welcoming, warm and transparent mobility hub, shaped for the flow of people and public life.

“This is a historic decision for Västerås, but it is also important for our entire region. Västerås Travel Centre is the busiest public transport node in Västmanland and we are preparing to become a future node in a high-speed route between Oslo and Stockholm. A new and modern travel centre that will facilitate the sustainable travel of the future,” says Helene Öhrling, Mayor of Västerås.

The New York Times features NASA’s Project Olympus in a feature article about NASA’s goal to build homes on the moon by 2040.

BIG is collaborating with ICON, SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) and NASA to create Project Olympus, a lunar habitat set to be the first human foray into extra-terrestrial construction.

Through the Artemis program – a collaboration with commercial and international partners to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before – NASA has signaled that the Moon will be the first off-Earth site for sustainable surface exploration. ICON, a developer of advanced construction technologies such as robotics, software and building materials, was awarded a government Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, including funding from NASA, to begin research and development of a space-based construction system that could support future exploration of the Moon.

“The NASA Olympus habitats will be designed with the inherent redundancy required for extraterrestrial buildings, while also using groundbreaking robotic construction that uses only in-situ resources with zero waste left behind. With the technologies and efficiency parameters developed for the construction of extraterrestrial buildings, Project Olympus will also help us build sustainably on planet Earth as we strive to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment.” – Martin Voelkle, Partner, BIG

Quito, Ecuador is becoming a creative cultural hub in South America. Ian Volner reports on the dynamic city for Travel + Leisure, describing it as a “hot spot for design, food and more” and noting its evolving skyline, which includes two residential projects from BIG: IQON and EPIQ.

IQON, BIG’s first building in South America, rises 130m and 32-stories high. Biophilia from the neighboring La Carolina Park extends up onto its façade – which doubles as the building’s structure – and into the private domain of each home.

Comprised by a single tower in two divided blocks, EPIQ is conceived as a “vertical city” that also brings the dramatic natural environment of Quito into its structure. The design of EPIQ reflects the colors and patterns of Ecuador, taking the inspiration for its façade from the earth tones and herringbone pattern of tiles seen through the streets of Quito’s Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Urban Land Institute Magazine has included Wildflower Studios in an article about modern soundstage design. Located in Astoria in New York City’s borough of Queens, the BIG-designed film, television, production and creative studio complex is being developed by Wildflower Ltd. in conjunction with actor Robert De Niro, his son Raphael and producer Jane Rosenthal.

While film studios are typically organized side by side on large lots, in the dense urban environment of New York City BIG reimagined this arrangement to house the future of film within a reduced footprint.

The program is organized around eleven basic studio ‘modules.’ Each module consists of the large span stage, vertical transportation and production support spaces such as scene shops and dressing rooms. The modules are organized into two-story rows contained within a single volume. A central spine between the two rows becomes the bustling heart of activity between the stages. Large openings in the warehouse bring daylight into the central street and create a communal terrace for the actors, production crews, producers, screenwriters and other inhabitants.  

Silicon Valley Business Journal has awarded BIG and Heatherwick the 2023 STRUCTURES Award for Google Bay View in the category of Best Architecture. The annual Silicon Valley Business Journal STRUCTURES Awards celebrate “outstanding Silicon Valley commercial real estate projects, game-changing deals and high-power developers.”

Anchored in three themes defined by Google’s design brief at the beginning of the project – innovation, nature, and community – Google Bay View’s design is driven by flexibility and extraordinary user experience that inspires collaboration and co-creation. Co-designed by BIG and Heatherwick, team spaces are on the upper level and gathering spaces are below, separating focus and collaborative areas while still providing easy access to both. The second floor design has variation in floorplates to give teams a designated “neighborhood” area that is highly flexible to change with their needs.

Partner Catherine Huang spoke alongside AM Hub’s Programme Director Eleonora Orsetti at Scandinavia’s biggest conference for Additive Manufacturing in Copenhagen, AM Summit. The conference showcases the latest advancements, technologies, and solutions within the industry, and the two took the stage to speak about BIG and AM Hub’s research and development of I AM MSHRM.

Born out of a desire to innovate the construction industry, I AM MSHRM was developed with the purpose of finding new ways to reduce spatial and material waste through the application of additive manufacturing. The result is a rapidly deployable and easily assembled modular construction system, consisting of 3D-printed frame elements, made from plastic waste and locally sourced sugarcane and cornstarch, filled with mycelium.

BIG’s Founder and Creative Director Bjarke Ingels and Partner Finn Nørkjær take part in the foundation stone laying ceremony for the new Wellness Hotel in Aarhus along with the City Council, Kilden & Hindby, Scandic and NCC.

Overlooking the Aarhus waterfront, the 18-storey hotel will house office spaces, restaurants, a conference center and a spa. A public staircase designed by BIG’s Landscape team will spiral from the harbour to an observation deck on the hotel’s roof.

BIG designs the new headquarters for Danish supply chain company, Dymak. Located in Denmark’s third largest city, Odense, the 2800 m2 building includes offices, showroom space and shared facilities for sports and socializing, supporting a dynamic work environment. Mainly constructed in cross-laminated timber, the new HQ is conceived as a circular building body, topped with an undulating roof covered in PVCs, angled for harvesting solar energy throughout the year as well as to provide shade and reduce noise pollution for the inner open-air courtyard.

The project combines the efforts of BIG LEAP – BIG’s Architecture, Landscape, Engineering and Product Design teams – and is designed to achieve DGNB Gold and Heart Certification.”

Google Bay View has won the Facade Tectonic Institute’s 2023 Vitruvian Award in the category “Outstanding New Facade (Low Rise)”. The award ceremony was held on September 19 at the Center for Architecture in New York.

Hosted annually by the Facade Tectonics Institute (FTI), the Vitruvian Award “seeks to recognize unprecedented innovation and achievements in the field of facade design and delivery,” according to the FTI website. 

Co-designed by BIG and Heatherwick, Google Bay View is composed of a series of large canopy structures that allows the entire workspace to be open and connected under one roof. Access to natural light and views with reduced glare during working hours were priority design elements, achieved through the use of carefully-placed clerestory windows. Its first-of-its-kind “dragonscale” solar skin roof equipped with 50,000 silver solar panels generates a total of nearly seven megawatts of energy.

In partnership with Pratt Institute, BIG’s exhibition highlighting our resiliency projects, titled Adaptive Archipelago, is now on view on Governors Island in New York City. The exhibition showcases a series of strategies for adapting various existing and artificial archipelagos to our planet’s changing climate, and includes a selection of BIG’s completed and upcoming projects, including Urban Rigger in Copenhagen and the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project in New York City.

Adaptive Archipelago is on view through October.

As reported by Forbes Czech Republic, the Vltava Philharmonic Hall is featured in a new exhibition at the Centre for Architecture and Urban Planning in Prague, entitled Prague Tomorrow? The City and the River. The exhibition explores twenty-five upcoming projects that will activate the Vltava River in the Czech capital.

The Vltava Philharmonic Hall will be the country’s first national concert hall in over 100 years, becoming the new home of the world-class philharmonic for 1800+ audiences that will celebrate the Czech music tradition and cement the country as a cultural capital in Europe.

“The Vltava Philharmonic Hall is composed as a meandering journey from riverbank to rooftop. Public flows and belvedere plazas unite the city life of Prague to the music within. Its halls are formed for sight, fine-tuned for sound, and orchestrated for functionality and connectivity. From this rhythmic structure, a symphony of colonnades and balconies extend as platforms for public life. Expressive yet pragmatic, the new Philharmonic will ascend to form a key landmark for Prague – from river to roof.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Partner, BIG.

On the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Hudson River Park, New York Times reporter Jane Margolies writes about the 550-acre park’s impact on the transformation of Manhattan’s West Side. Hudson River Park, which draws 17 million visits a year and is the largest park in Manhattan besides Central Park, has helped spur real estate development on the borough’s West Side, including the residential development VIA 57 West designed by BIG.

Bjarke Ingels was featured on a recent episode of business podcast Masters of Scale, recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. In the episode, host Reid Hoffman calls upon four entrepreneurs to share one lesson for tackling world issues and offer their strategies for taking on society’s most complex challenges.

Bjarke’s contribution focused on how to utilize sustainable design to build a better future and shared the importance of finding our “why” to create actionable solutions for the difficult challenges of today, including climate change, which propelled the creation of his Plan for the Planet initiative.

Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Cove Park welcomes Solar One Environmental Education Center, a dynamic center for environmental innovation and learning designed by BIG, which has now officially started construction. In collaboration with NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Gilbane, our design for non-profit Solar One’s new home and Environmental Education Center will be a hub for environmental innovation, events and learning. The center will also act as a gateway to the northernmost point of Manhattan’s East Side Coastal Resiliency Waterfront Redevelopment designed by BIG in collaboration with AKRF, ONE and MNLA.

Solar One Environmental Education Center will be located at 23rd Street and Avenue C on the East River coastline. It will be occupied by the non-profit group Solar One, whose mission is to design and deliver innovative education, training and technical assistance that fosters sustainability and resiliency in diverse urban environments. The 6,362-square-foot, two-story building, commissioned by Solar One along with NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Gilbane Building Company, will replace the former Solar One building at the same site, which replace the former Solar One building at the same site, which became a refuge for area residents in Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath by providing recharging capabilities to nearby hospitals when the entire energy grid went down south of 34^th Street.

The Solar One Environmental Education Center is slated to open in 2024.

The London Borough of Southwark Planning Committee has approved the design for our building design within Canada Water Dockside.

The reserved matters applications approved by Southwark Council include detailed plans for two commercially-led buildings: A1, designed by BIG; and A2 by HWKN Architecture, plus the new public realm by Townshend Landscape Architects.

Our project, building A1, is within Art-Invest Real Estate’s 1.5 million sq. ft. commercially-led landmark development, which was masterplanned by BIG and is one of London’s largest developments that sits at the heart of the Canada Water regeneration neighbourhood, located next to Canada Water itself.

“The proposed design of building A1 was conceived as an antidote to the traditional idea of air-conditioned glass boxes as a place of work. Natural ventilation, garden terraces and a spectacular ground floor inviting cyclists and pedestrians equally, are all incorporated into a building that takes the form of five sustainable buildings stacked on top of each other, with a twist,” says Andy Young, Partner at BIG.

Google Bay View is featured in World-Architect’s exhibition tour in collaboration with the Architect@Work venues. The exhibition will feature 40 projects from its members worldwide and tour through 15 European countries, beginning in Hamburg, Germany on September 13th.

Designed by BIG and Heatherwick, Google Bay View is Google’s first-ever ground-up campus with the mission to operate on carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2030. Anchored in three themes defined by Google’s design brief at the beginning of the project – innovation, nature and community – the design is driven by flexibility and extraordinary user experience that inspires collaboration and co-creation.

Born out of a desire to innovate the construction industry, BIG and AM Hub explore a new methodology for the application of additive manufacturing that optimizes print time and material usage with a composite system design.

The result is I AM MSHRM, a rapidly deployable and easily assembled system consisting of 3D printed frame elements, made from plastic waste and locally sourced sugarcane and cornstarch, filled with mycelium. The frame elements are bespoke in geometry, yet modular in their assembly logic and are printed as a structural exoskeleton that is completed by the mycelium composite grown within, adding rigidity and enclosure. The system is designed to be further developed to be utilized in a future rapidly deployable emergency shelter system and eventually a complete building.

“In collaboration with AM Hub, we researched and developed a 3D printed deployable, innovative frame system filled with mycelium. The goal has been to develop a new system of building that can do more with less. Less construction waste because printing eliminates the need for molds and scaffolds, less organic waste because our building literally takes trash and turns it into building blocks and less carbon because we have invented a bio-based plastic panel system that optimizes material properties.” – Catherine Huang, Partner, BIG

Zurich Airport is honouring its 75th anniversary this weekend with a three-day celebration from September 1st to 3rd.

Since its opening in 1948, Zurich Airport has become one of the most important aviation hubs in Europe. Following the airport’s previous additions of Dock E, the Airside Center and The Circle, BIG is designing the airport’s new main terminal, Dock A.

Our design of the 74.750 m2 Dock A is conceived as a mass timber space frame that is structural design, spatial experience, architectural finish and organizational principle in one. The structure is made from locally sourced timber, and the roof is entirely clad in solar shingles turning sunlight into a power source. Dock A will include Schengen and Non-Schengen gates, airside retail, lounges, offices, the new air traffic control tower and an extension of the immigration hall.

North American 3D-printing construction technology company ICON has launched Initiative 99, a global architecture competition calling architects and designers to submit 3D-printed housing designs that can be built for under $99,000.

A selection of winning designs will be built by ICON and showcased as models for future affordable housing. Bjarke Ingels will join an expert panel of architects, academics and policymakers to judge the competition, which is officially open for entries and offers a total prize of $1 million.

BIGsters walked in the Copenhagen Pride Parade alongside 15 Danish architecture studios under the banner Architects Together in support and celebration of diversity, inclusivity and acceptance for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Architects Together initiative was developed in collaboration with Copenhagen-based architecture offices Cobe, EFFEKT, PLH Arkitekter, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, ADEPT, Holscher Nordberg, Dorte Mandrup, Gehl Architects, LINK Arkitektur, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, Henning Larsen, Gottlieb Paludan Architects, SLA, C.F. Møller Architects and 3XN.

ELLE Japan include BIG’s CopenHill, Biosphere, Google Bay View and The Plus project on their list of buildings that combine innovative ideas on sustainability with beautiful design.

A demonstration plant for carbon capture has been installed on the chimney of CopenHill, which will be able to capture up to 4 metric tons CO2 daily. Running until summer 2024, the demonstration plant washes the carbon out of flue gas and binds it in a liquid. Followingly, it is transported to a local farm on the island of Zealand, Denmark, to be used as fertilizer. The goal of the demonstration plant is to build on learnings to commission a full-scale carbon capture unit, which will be able to capture up to 500,000 tons of CO2 annually.

On the mission to end single-use plastic in the hospitality sector, TURN Systems & BIG Products teamed up to design a system of reusable cups, return bins and on-site washing facilities.

As reported by Fast Company, the latest pilot program with Starbucks aims to reduce the company’s current use of around 6 billion disposable cups annually worldwide. We couldn’t be more excited to be part of this journey!

The TURN cups are produced with recycled polypropylene, aluminium or stainless steel and can be reused up to 120 times, by returning them to the Smart Bins for quick, efficient, and safe dispensing. The Smart Washer, a mobile truck, washes the cups 5x faster than a traditional dishwasher, as well as tracks the number of cups being returned, calculating the environmental benefit. Other partnerships include Live Nation, Oak View Group, Pepsi, and Delta.

By introducing the TURN system, Starbucks is hoping to incentivize customers to opt for a more climate friendly option when ordering their coffee: “For customers, seeing is believing—if reusable cups are offered and used more, customers will start thinking about it for every visit as the norm,” says Amy Wang, Director for Global Reusables Strategy at Starbucks.

The Spiral has secured three more tenants to occupy its space in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards in New York City. The three financial firms will take a combined 112,000 square feet in the 66-story, 2.8 million-square-foot tower, continuing the steady drumbeat of leasing activity at The Spiral and reflecting the desire of tenants to still occupy modern, high-end and energy efficient properties.

The 1,005 ft high-rise is a unique hybrid that intertwines a continuous green pathway with workspaces on every level. The building sets a new standard for the contemporary workplace, where nature becomes an integrated part of the work environment while spatial features are continuously adaptable to the changing needs of the tenants and their organizations. 

“Designed for the people that occupy it, The Spiral ensures that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors, creating hanging gardens and cascading atria that connect the open floor plates from the ground floor to the summit into a single uninterrupted workspace.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG

The Chainsmokers, in collaboration with The Blumenfeld Development Group and creative agency NOISE, are sponsoring a one-year artist residency program at The Smile, designed by BIG, to help support emerging musicians in New York City. The winner will receive an apartment equipped with a music studio in The Smile, free of charge for the duration of the year.

The Smile, located between 125th Street and 126th Street in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, encourages community engagement through a retail space and two-story gallery. The Smile’s unique T-shaped footprint offers a diverse set of unit sizes and layout organizations, creating a dynamic component to the evolving Harlem streetscape.

La Vanguardia covers the expansion of BIG’s office in Barcelona which has grown to over 80 employees since its opening in 2019. Led by Partner João Albuquerque, the office focuses on projects in Europe’s southern region, and is currently developing the new FarFetch HQ in the hills of Porto, the Joint Research Center in Sevilla for the European Commission, and the Gastronomy Open Ecosystem in the heart of San Sebastián among others. In the Fall of 2023, the office will be relocating to a new space in Ronda de Sant Pere in central Barcelona.

The Dumbo Improvement District recently unveiled new BIG-designed street furniture and planters along Washington Street. Designed for the Open Streets program, the pixelated modules aim to expand the sidewalks of Brooklyn’s most photogenic street into literal platforms for urban life and wildlife.

“Now, we have a smart, gorgeous design that will draw in visitors and locals alike,” says Alexandria Sica, president of the Dumbo Improvement District. “Space for a coffee catchup with a colleague, a game of Uno with your besties, and yes, that perfect shot.”

As a part of Bentley’s Extraordinary Journey travel series, the car manufacturer has developed a curated road trip for discovering Scandinavian architecture. The trip transports participants from Stockholm to Copenhagen in Bentley’s cars, stopping for selected experiences showcasing Nordic design and food along the way. BIG’s Copenhagen office acts as the final stop of the trip, offering guests a tour of the studio and insights into our practice.

Images of the first model home in the biggest 3D-printed housing development in the world have been unveiled. Designed by BIG alongside home construction company Lennar and 3D-printing construction-tech startup ICON, the housing development is an expansion of the Wolf Ranch community, located just north of Austin, Texas.

Over one-third of the new neighbourhood’s printing work, executed by ICON’s fleet of Vulcan robot printer systems, is now complete. These printers excrete “lavacrete” — a proprietary “high strength” concrete — that hardens into the walls of units’ walls.

The 3D-printed buildings are “significant steps towards reducing waste in the construction process, as well as towards making our homes more resilient, sustainable and energy self-sufficient,” said Martin Voelkle, Partner at BIG NYC.

CapitaSpring has received the President*s Design Award (P*DA), Singapore’s highest honour for designers and designs across all disciplines, in the category of 2023 Design of the Year. Designed jointly by BIG and CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati in collaboration with RSP, the 51-storey mixed-use development is situated in the heart of Singapore’s financial district and reinforces Singapore’s reputation as a garden city with its vertical exploration of tropical urbanism.

“The P*DA remains steadfast in celebrating the impact of design. This year, the P*DA recipients have made a compelling case for how design can improve the lives of people from all walks of life, demonstrating the maturing of Singapore’s design industry as they work across disciplines to build a better world by design,” says Dawn Lim, Executive Director of DesignSingapore Council.

Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet and the Hôtel de Horlogers are detailed in a travel article about Lausanne and the Joux Valley published by The New York Times. The piece features new images of the site in Le Brassus, captured by Clara Tuma.

“Designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, the museum rises out of an adjacent pasture. The building coils like the spring of a watch, never appearing to stop, rather like time itself,” writes Christopher Solomon. “Where the museum curves, the hotel is all angles. It zigzags from street level down to that same pasture, the jutting gray concrete of each turn as raw as an exposed ridgeline. Each turn exposes a new floor, and gives each of the hotel’s 50 rooms its own unobstructed view through floor-to-ceiling windows across the pasture to cows grazing and the Risoud Forest beyond.”

The Financial Times Globetrotter has developed a 28km cycling route that takes in nine of BIG’s Copenhagen projects, including early works such as the 8 House and Copenhagen Harbour Baths, as well as CopenHill, Noma and the soon-to-be completed Kaktus Towers and BIG HQ in Nordhavn.

Kai-Uwe Bergmann is interviewed in an episode of This Is DesignIntelligence, a podcast series that focuses on the built environment. During the episode, entitled “Designing Value: Forming the Future,” Kai talks about what inspired him to become an architect, why he believes every project he designs needs to provide something new to the community, and the forgotten opportunity where design professionals can provide value.

Bjarke Ingels spoke as part of the keynote dialogue at the UIA World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen, which gathered 6.000 architects from around the world. Together with Margrethe Vesterager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, the two discussed how businesses and institutions can contribute to shaping a more sustainable and equitable future in the built environment.

Pope Francis invited Bjarke Ingels and other creatives to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican Museum’s Modern & Contemporary Collections at the Sistine Chapel. In his speech, Pope Francis emphasized the significance of art in human existence, and encouraged the invited creatives to continue to act as catalysts for change in society, underlining that they have the ability to dream new versions of the world by which they propel humanity forward.

Västerås Travel Center receives planning permission by the City’s Executive Building Committee. Located at the heart of one of Sweden’s largest cities, Västerås, the namesake Travel Center will bring together several modes of transport in an integrated, 17.000 m2 mobility hub, and become an important node redefining the city’s infrastructure and landscape.

Connecting to the existing urban fabric, Västerås Travel Center is designed to unite all transportation functions such as railway, buses and bicycles, as well as bridge the city center and the nearby Lake Mälaren — areas currently divided by train tracks.

“Västerås’ new Travel Center brings the entire city’s infrastructural hub together on one landscape, under one roof. The travel center is designed as a piece of social infrastructure, shaped for the flow of people and public life. We wanted to celebrate movement and create a welcoming, warm and transparent mobility hub that becomes an important social and economic node redefining the city’s infrastructure and landscape” – Bjarke Ingels, Creative Director and Founder, BIG

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2023 shortlists the ’50 Queens’ exhibition in the Sustainable Development Goals category. Developed by BIG Landscape Partner, Giulia Frittoli and Partner, David Zahle, in collaboration with Golden Days and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the exhibition represents SDG 05: Gender Equality.

First exhibited in Copenhagen last year, ’50 Queens’ was a sculptural takeover of Copenhagen’s iconic King’s Square – temporarily renamed to Queen’s Square – featuring notable women in Danish history with the mission to bring more diversity to the city’s many male statues and celebrate Denmark’s fearless women.

“Our exhibition celebrates the untold stories of women who have made significant contributions to Danish history but haven’t yet been properly recognized. As more focus is brought to issues of social justice and equality, we are so proud and honored to contribute to the conversation and give a voice to those who haven’t been heard. With 50 Queens, I hope we can raise awareness about the importance of gender equality and social diversity in our cities and public spaces to inform how we can improve our urban communities of today and plan for more equal cities of tomorrow,” says Giulia Frittoli, Partner, BIG

Metropolis Magazine names CapitaSpring one of the architectural jewels of Singapore in a story exploring the development and architectural creativity of the city’s built environment. The 51-storey high-rise’s facade consists of vertical elements, pulled apart to reveal glimpses into the green oases blooming from the base, core and rooftop, creating a dynamic interplay of orthogonal lines and lush greenery throughout.

Andy Young, partner at BIG London, spoke at ING Media’s recent panel held in London on June 14th for a free-flowing discussion on how London’s built environment contributes to its global soft power. The panel, titled ‘Soft power, common ground: what can London learn from the world’s cities?’, covered topics relating to architecture’s place in the soft power conversation and how it’s leveraged worldwide, including how London uses places and spaces to maximise its identity on the world stage, what it can learn from its neighbours, and how one quantifies ‘soft power’ to begin with.

The construction phase for Google Caribbean in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County approaches its finish line with facade installation nearly complete.

Straddling the West Channel waterway, the campus features two sibling hillsides that gently rise out of the landscape to form zig-zagging roof gardens. Walking paths and bike lanes originating from the Bay Trail meander up the roof-scape, allowing inhabitants to walk or bike straight to and from their desks. Under these lush gardens, cascading floor plates form an interconnected space for the workforce, each flooded with magnificent double height north light, expansive views to the bay, and instant access to nature. The south facades are punctured with active quadruple-height porches forming the social heart of the building, as the activities spill out on to Caspian Drive – the new social street for the neighborhood. The Google Hillside campus combines innovative workplace, bountiful nature, three-dimensional pathways, and a lively public realm.

The ‘50 Queens’ exhibition wins Gold at the Creative Circle Awards in the Spatial Design category. Developed by BIG Landscape Partner, Giulia Frittoli and Partner, David Zahle in collaboration with Golden Days and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, it celebrates the untold stories of 50 significant women with the mission to bring more gender diversity to Copenhagen’s public spaces.

’50 Queens’ was first exhibited at the King’s Square in the heart of Copenhagen in September 2022, and the pedestals have since then travelled to various locations throughout the country, most recently to the Bloom Festival where they were installed in the Søndermarken Park in Frederiksberg, Denmark.

CapitaSpring has been awarded at the 2023 ULI Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence, a programme dedicated to highlighting 10 of the most remarkable development efforts in the Asia Pacific region. Located in the heart of Singapore’s financial district, the 280-meter-tall highrise creates a diverse neighborhood of places to work, live and play in a vertical exploration of tropical urbanism.

“This year’s winners demonstrated exceptional innovation and practice in land use, particularly in terms of establishing a deep connection with the community in which they are located, enriching liveability, and elevating connectivity to surrounding amenities”, said David Faulkner, President, ULI Asia Pacific.

BIG joins forces with clothing brand Vollebak to create Vollebak Island, a small self-sustained adventure village off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, in the spectacular Jeddore Harbour.

The 11-acre ‘home of adventure’ will feature the central Earth House, a series of nine interconnected buildings clustered under a man-made hill, and the resilient Wood House annex, a standalone garden suite structure on the island’s eastern shoreline. Fully powered by carbon neutral energy, each room in the village is made from its own unique material – stacked seaweed, compacted earth, hemp, glass brick or locally sourced stone – tailored for the specific use and experience of that particular room.

“Vollebak is using technology and material innovation to create clothes that are as sustainable and resilient as they are beautiful. In other words, the fashion equivalent of BIG’s architectural philosophy of Hedonistic Sustainability. For Vollebak Island, we incorporate local tradition elevated by global innovation in a self-sustained manmade ecosystem,” -Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

Vollebak Island and BIG’s design vision will be auctioned as part of Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions’ Exceptional Global Properties sale at Sotheby’s New York on 14 June.

BIG’s founder and creative director Bjarke Ingels was interviewed for the 300th episode of USModernist® Radio, a podcast from one of the largest digital archives for Modernist residential design. During the episode, host George Smart and Bjarke cover a wide range of topics, including Bjarke’s hedonistic sustainability ethos, the idea that reducing our environmental impact can increase our quality of life; BIG’s partnership with ICON and building on the moon; becoming a father; and more.

BIG NYC partner Kai-Uwe Bergmann was one of four panelists at the recent Nordic Innovation Summit 2023, held at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, Washington on May 11th. Alongside founders, corporate leaders, and other innovators from the Nordic countries and the United States, Kai-Uwe joined the panel to discuss sustainable strategies in architecture, from Scandinavia to the U.S., addressing the summit’s broader conversation: Sustaining Sustainability in a Rapidly Changing World.

Politico reports how Copenhagen is reinventing public spaces through the concept of ‘playful urbanism’, introducing innovative ideas for what a city can be. The article showcases BIG’s projects Copenhill and Superkilen as drivers of urban life, and describe how they foster a healthy environment and encourage play among the city’s residents.

Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) selects BIG for the design of a new performance home, alongside performing arts architecture firm William Rawn Associates and Nashville-based EOA Architects, in their global architecture team announcement.

Following the approval of a $200 million State grant, TPAC intends to build upon its unique capacity for narrative storytelling to create an artistic beacon worthy of Tennessee’s creative legacy.

“Nashville is a city fueled by the creative energy of music and performing arts. TPAC is already a lively and celebrated institution in the cultural fabric of Nashville – and together with the TPAC leadership team, William Rawn Associates and EOA Architects, we are about to embark on a journey to imagine and design the future physical framework of TPAC that will be as open, inviting, integrated and inclusive as the institution already is. Once the form reflects the organization’s mission, we believe TPAC will be one of the great cultural institutions for performing arts in the country, and in the world.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

A generous donation from Aarhus University and the Aarhus University Research Fund has been granted to the realization of The Danish Neuroscience Center. Partner David Zahle spoke to the administration of Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital, Salling Fondene and the Regional Council at an event marking the milestone.

First of its kind in the world, the neuroscience center directly connects to the Aarhus University Hospital, seeking to combine groundbreaking science and treatment of physical and mental brain diseases, spinal cord, and nervous systems.

The Ø4 Urban Life project has topped out in Aarhus Harbor, Denmark. Comprised of 13 commercial houses located along the harbour’s waterfront, the project is part of BIG’s masterplan for Bassin 7 developed in collaboration with Gehl Architects. Set to house bars, cafés, and rental shops for watersports, the Ø4 Urban Life project will be a hub for life and activity in the Aarhus Harbor. The facades and roofs will be covered with a variation of materials, ranging from cork, wood, glass and straw, giving each house their own distinct architectural character.

Sheela Maini Søgaard, CEO and Partner of BIG, has been appointed to the board of Bikubenfonden, a Danish foundation that supports cultural and social initiatives in Denmark. The foundation’s mission is to promote social inclusion, cultural diversity, and sustainable development through funding innovative ideas, structures, and methods that create maximum social value and artistic significance.

At this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, BIG Products is launching an array of new project and collaborations. Expanding the lighting family for Artemide, the Gople and Knop systems launches along with new additions to the Veil, Vine and Stellar Nebula collections. Furthermore, the team presents the Colle sofa for Italian lifestyle brand Natuzzi as well as the Totem Shelf for Driade.

A public event with present and former servicemembers, the arts and cultural communities, and the wider public at the DC Navy Yard this afternoon provided a preview of the artistic ideas and concepts for the planned new National Museum of the United States Navy. The competition is an important conceptual and artistic process toward creating a publicly accessible state-of-the-art museum – a home for both Naval veterans and the public, a living memorial to the U.S. Navy’s heritage, a lighthouse in the community for education and public events. BIG’s vision, developed in collaboration with Squint/Opera and Olin Studio, reflects the historical context of the Navy Yards while referencing the scale, materials, and details of Navy vessels. An array of large-scale vitrines opens up towards a public street, welcoming visitors and locals with an impressive glimpse into the museum’s collection of artifacts inside and outside, conveying the mission, lineage and breadth of operations that constitutes the US Navy. 

Copenhill is part of the newly opened, permanent exhibition “So Danish!” at the Danish Architecture Center, showcasing the history of Danish architecture from the Viking age to present day. Attending the opening, Partner David Zahle spoke to HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark about Copenhill and how the waste-to-energy plant combines functional and sustainable design, while also providing a platform for the wider public to learn about waste as a resource.

Denmark’s Minister of Environment, Magnus Heunicke, and a Danish delegation visited BIG NYC to tour the early phases of the coastal resiliency project The BIG U, a flood management system protecting Lower Manhattan. The first phase is a 2.5 mile stretch from East 23rd Street to Montgomery Street in the Lower East Side that is fully financed at $1.4 Billion with a completion date in 2026.

BIG NYC Partners Kai-Uwe Bergmann and Daniel Sundlin discussed the project’s proposal to rethink infrastructure as a social amenity that both protects structural and environmental vulnerabilities while enhancing social and recreational activity. The BIG U combines the mandate to create large-scale protective infrastructure with a commitment to meaningful community engagement.

Le Figaro covers several BIG Copenhagen projects, from VM Houses, Copenhill, 8 House, Urban Rigger and Superkilen, in a special feature exploring architecture and culture in the Danish capital.

Director of BIG Sustainability, Tore Banke, has been appointed Adjunct Professor at IE University Madrid – School of Architecture & Design. Along with Principal at Regenesis Group, Bill Reed and Emmanuel Pauwels, Founder of Green Living Projects, Tore will be contributing to the Sustainable Leadership Program, which brings together practice and academia in addressing the importance of sustainability in the building sector.

Located north of Georgetown, Kentucky, the new 35,000-square-foot distillery and 20,000-square-foot rickhouse will break ground in 2023 and is expected to open in 2025. The architecture for the Blue Run distillery and HQ celebrates the art of whiskey-making, sustainable technologies, and the landscape of Kentucky.

“For Blue Run we have boiled the entire process of whiskey-making down to a single linear sequence – from distilling to maturing to bottling. The half-mile long process meanders through the gentle hillsides creating bends and banks, inlets and outlooks. A single shingled roof of photovoltaic tiles twists and turns to maintain optimal orientation even as the activities underneath require grandeur or intimacy. In the same way the Georgetown Spring is shaped by how the water flows through it, Blue Run Distillery is shaped by the flow of the whiskey and the processes and people who make it,” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

Climate ministers from around the world gathered at the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, along with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark to pave the way for an ambitious COP28. Creative Director and Founder, Bjarke Ingels spoke to the esteemed audience about BIG’s Plan for The Planet – a masterplan for creating a sustainable, carbon-neutral world driven on renewable energy.

BIG hosted the Mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, on his recent visit to Copenhagen, which aimed at exploring how urban development benefits from well-designed architecture. Partner Brian Yang and Associate Jinho Lee welcomed the Mayor at our CPH office, followed by visits to BIG’s projects in Copenhagen, including the Copenhagen Harbor Baths, Urban Rigger and Noma, ending at Copenhill with a tour lead by Bjarke Ingels.

The Sluishuis neighborhood in Amsterdam has been named Best Residential Project at this year’s MIPIM Awards. This year, the MIPIM jury focused on buildings that enrich the lives of their users, the environment and community.

Sluishuis is a reinterpretation of the classic courtyard typology for life on water, bringing 442 zero-energy homes and a comprehensive water-quality program with space for up to 30 houseboats to the banks of the IJ River in Amsterdam. Designed by BIG and Barcode Architects, the building is shaped by its surroundings, at once close to large infrastructure and to small-scale urban communities.

BIG’s Creative Director and Founder, Bjarke Ingels, sat with Wajahat Ali at SXSW in Austin, Texas to speak about the future of 3D-printed architecture and BIG’s collaboration with 3D-printing company, ICON, on a 100-homes community in Wolf Ranch and the reimagined El Cosmico in Marfa.

Developed together with Bassin 7, NCC and Rambøll, BIG has designed an 18-storey hotel overlooking the Aarhus waterfront, which will house office spaces, restaurants, a conference center, pool and spa. A public staircase designed by BIG Landscape, will spiral from the harbour to an observation deck on the hotel’s roof.

The project is the last addition to the realization of BIG’s Aarhus Harbour Masterplan developed in collaboration with Gehl Architects, which includes the BIG-designed AARhus Residences, Aarhus Theatre, The Beach Huts, Kampanilen and Aarhus Harbour Bath.

The Financial Times highlights the BIG-designed modular apartment block Sneglehusene in Aarhus in an article exploring factory-built homes that are pushing the boundaries of design and the stigma surrounding prefabricated housing.

The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design has appointed BIG to complete space planning, programming, and concept design for the multidisciplinary design school. After a decade of increasing enrollment numbers and expanded program offerings, the school is working to transform its facilities to accommodate recent growth and upgrade academic spaces. By taking advantage of existing facility strengths in the heart of KU’s Lawrence campus, BIG will develop a plan that visualizes a redesigned home for the school that respects the established character of the site while also being optimized for innovative teaching and research.

“For an architect, each project is kicked off with a crash course seeking to educate ourselves in an entirely new field, because we rarely design for other architects (they tend to do that themselves). In this case – with our first design for a school of architecture and design – I feel like I have been preparing for this on a daily basis for the last three decades,” said BIG Founder and Creative Director Bjarke Ingels. “We want to create the physical framework for future generations of Kansas form-givers, architects and designers – a space that provokes unexpected encounters, triggers critical conversations and builds new bridges between discourses and skill sets, arts, crafts and technologies. The design work is just about to begin, even if my research for it started a generation ago.”

Landsec’s redevelopment of Red Lion Court, Bankside has received planning permission to create a green office cluster in Southwark. The new Red Lion Court development will deliver 230,000 sq ft of Grade A offices, retail and open public space on the banks of the River Thames, adjacent to Borough Yards. The BIG-designed building will provide access to outdoor spaces on every floor, an extensive communal roof terrace and unfettered views over the river into the City.

Plans for the building have been drawn up in collaboration with the local community following a two year public consultation. Over 45% of the site will be publicly accessible, including an expanded Thames Path, a pocket park and community garden plus affordable office space, flexible retail, a bike repair centre and wellness centre.

Red Lion Court has been designed to be net-zero in both construction and operation. By reusing part of the existing building and prioritising low carbon and recycled materials, the design will meet GLA and Southwark policy in terms of sustainability, biodiversity and energy efficiency. The completed building will be fully electric and target WELL Core Platinum and BREEAM ‘Outstanding’.

The nomadic campground hotel in Marfa will be expanded and reimagined as a 62-acre community, featuring large-scale 3D-printed structures for new guest units and hospitality spaces. Breaking ground in 2024, El Cosmico will continue to celebrate the convergence of creative culture and the minimalistic natural environment of the Marfa landscape.

To celebrate the collaboration, the team partnered with Austin’s Long Center for the Performing Arts to bring a taste of El Cosmico to Austin, Texas during SXSW. The 3D-printed performance pavilion combines the architectural design themes planned for the new El Cosmico in Marfa in a single, sculptural space for culture and community in the heart of downtown Austin.

“Our collaboration with El Cosmico and ICON has allowed us to pursue the formal and material possibilities of cutting-edge 3D printed construction untethered by the traditional limitations of a conventional site or client. Liz Lambert’s legacy for reimagining hospitality and her pioneering of a contemporary Texan aesthetic combined with the Minimalistic nature and culture, art and landscape of Marfa has been the perfect fit to pursue a new architectural vernacular language for El Cosmico in Marfa. Organic shapes, Euclidian circular geometries and a color palette born from the local terroir makes El Cosmico feel as if literally erected from the site it stands on. As an outpost of El Cosmico in Austin, Liz Lambert, ICON and BIG have partnered to create a permanent pavilion for music and performances. A single crescent wall emerges from the natural slope of the Long Centre’s front lawn. The adobe like color and texture of the horizontally layered wall appears like geological strata in an exposed cliff. Inspired by the Uruguayan engineer and architect Eladio Dieste, the sinuous curves at the foot of the pavilion provide both structural stability and social niches for the audience and performers. Organic form as structural function,” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

BIG wishes women everywhere a Happy International Women’s Day – powerhouses within the industry and beyond 🚀🌹

In celebration of International Women’s Day, BIG’s CEO and Partner, Sheela Sogaard, gave a keynote at their annual Global Women in Novo Nordisk event. Sheela shared her personal story on being a woman in leadership along with her perspective on how companies can drive change towards gender equality in the workspace and beyond.

Bloomberg details the world’s largest community of 3D-printed homes, situated north of Austin, Texas in the city of Georgetown’s master-planned community of Wolf Ranch. The project – built by ICON and Lennar and co-designed by BIG – is a 100-home community of 3D-printed houses titled ‘The Genesis Collection’.

Described as representing “perhaps the most significant innovation in residential construction in decades,” the construction of The Genesis Collection is underway, using ICON’s Vulcan robotic construction systems, software, and advanced materials to print the homes of the future.

The Plus has received the Norwegian DOGA Award for Design and Architecture. Aiming to connect people, production, nature, technology and architecture, The Plus doubles as a public park and exhibition center inviting visitors to follow the entire production process and sharing knowledge on resource consumption, circular design and sustainable manufacturing.

“This is a factory with a playful and visionary idiom. The open design and visitor center in the heart of the factory has created an attraction and contributed to pride in the local community. With its careful placement and use of wooden materials, colors, light and air, The Plus provides a refreshing contrast to traditional production facilities,” emphasized the DOGA jury.

Architectural Digest highlights Biosphere TreeHotel on their list of 20 Works of Wonders. Selected by Architectural Digest’s global network of editors, the WoW list names the most important new works in architecture, art, and design every year.