WHEN I MEET Bjarke Ingels in his firm’s surprisingly nondescript red brick office building in Copenhagen, the architect radiates Tigger-like energy, even though he’s just stepped off a plane from Mexico. There isn’t a hint of jet lag while he sits to talk, or at least tries to. Constantly shifting in his chair, Ingels seems to be straining against the urge to get up. Yet that restlessness will be essential if he’s to complete the extraordinary slate of projects underway – so many, in fact, that his 14-year-old firm will double its overall output in the next 18 months.
The high-profile commissions for Bjarke Ingels Group (or BIG) include a new Champs-Elysées flagship for Galeries Lafayette, Audemars Piguet’s new watch museum in Switzerland, two campuses for Google in California (one with Thomas Heatherwick) and several skyline-defining apartment towers in Manhattan. But Bjarke (pronounced BYARK-uh) seems neither intimidated nor overscheduled by this onslaught; rather, he appears to relish it. Ruffling his artfully tousled, Calvin and Hobbes–like hair, he speaks in blurted phrases, leaving uneven pauses between them that suggest he’s updating or revising what he thinks as he speaks. “Each project we do has to identify how the world is changing or has changed.” Pause. “And then address the consequences, the conflicts, the problems, and the potentials.”
Indeed, with each new project, Ingels pushes himself to reinvent. Whether the sloping roofs of Google’s Sunnyvale campus, which will double as ramps for walking or rolling, or Hualien Residences in Taiwan, which echo the nearby mountains (down to the steep facades covered in vegetation), Ingels’s designs fearlessly break the rules, playing with geometry and materials to create a built world worthy of 21st-century innovation. If Ingels has a signature move, it’s subverting expectations.
Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Robb Report Singapore.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Robb Report Singapore.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
BREAKING DOWN WALLS
Georgina Atkinson, managing partner of Origin Private Office, on the evolving landscape of high-end real estate.
Aged Gracefully
The Benromach 50 Years Old by Gordon & MacPhail is a delicious single malt, touched by love, passion and the human hand.
This Month's Feed
Only the best dining and drinking spots in Singapore.
Small-scale Thinking
Architect Todd Saunders wants to change the way we approach hospitality design from the ground up.
Todd Snyder Is Exactly Where He Wants To Be
\"Our whole goal is to present product in a way that guys get it and understand it, versus 'Here's some crazy aspirational brand-you go figure it out on your own'.\"
Depp Dive Into Sauvage
Johnny Depp on music, scents and the mystique of creativity.
Time For Poetry
Pascal Raffy on his love affair with the 202-year-old house of Bovet.
One of a Kind
The incomparable Lange 1 turns 30 this year and A. Lange & Söhne marks the occasion with its trademark understatement.
P For Personality
Enhance your swing, and inject your personal style while you're at it, with TaylorMade's new P-770 and P-7CB irons.
The Short-hop-adventure-craft Category Takes Off
Inside the flight deck of Pivotal's Blackfly eVTOL, an ultra-smart ultra-light with eight propellers, electric propulsion and no pilot's licence required.