Bjarke Ingels Group: The Latest Architecture and News

Bjarke Ingels Group has received approval for their King Street West condo community in Toronto. Originally proposed in 2016, the development was made as sets of pixels extruded upwards to create space for housing, retail and boutique offices. The concept was formed to avoid the footprints of heritage buildings that already exist on site. Alex Bozikovic, architecture critic of The Globe and Mail, reports that the development is about to start sales as King Street West pushes past its latest development hurdle.

Bjarke Ingels Group has built an 80-foot-diameter ORB at the 2018 Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada. The ORB was designed as an inflated spherical mirror with a steel mast. A series of photos have captured the ORB from both Burning Man festival goers and BIG partner Kai-Uwe Bergmann. As a landmark in The Playa, the ORB conceptually references mother earth and human expression, designed to leave no trace following its deflation.

+ 3

The Oakland Athletics baseball team have hired Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), James Corner Field Operations, and Gensler to lead the design process for their new ballpark and surrounding development in California. The new stadium will replace the Oakland A’s existing 51-year-old Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which the A’s share with the Oakland Raiders football team.

It has been reported by the San Francisco Business Times that BIG will lead the masterplan for the privately-financed ballpark, either at Howard Terminal or near the existing stadium, while Gensler will collaborate on the ballpark design. Field Operations will adopt the role of landscape architect for the development.

UNStudio and Cox Architecture have officially been announced as the winners of Melbourne’s landmark Southbank Precinct overhaul. Selected from a range of high-profile offices, including BIG, OMA, and MAD, UNStudio's vision for the $2 billion project includes a pair of twisted towers called Green Spine. As the largest single-phase project in the history of Victoria, Australia, the Green Spine is designed as a state-of-the-art, mixed-use environment centered around innovation in architecture and design.

+ 25

Bjarke Ingels Group’s “The Eleventh” has marked a major milestone, with the first of the scheme’s two twisting High Line towers topping out in Chelsea, Manhattan. New images show construction moving quickly along, with the taller 35-story tower now topped out, and work on the cladding steadily progressing.

The 400-foot-tall structure will twist alongside a second 300-foot-tall sister tower, standing out even amongst notable neighbors including Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, Jean Nouvel’s 100 11th Avenue and Foster + Partners’ 551 West 21st Street.

+ 9

Images have been released of the Bjarke Ingels Group-designed plans for Miami's Allapattah neighborhood. First reported by The Real Deal, the development is called the Miami Produce Center. A mega mixed-used complex on stilts, the design was created with Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett. A special area plan filed with the city of Miami shows the design will include office space, education areas, residential units, retail, a hotel and parking spaces. The eight-building complex will cover over 8 acres northwest of downtown Miami.

+ 9

The collaboration of Bjarke Ingels Group and Westbank are celebrating two milestones in Canada, as the topping out of their innovative Vancouver House coincides with the advanced construction of their relocated Serpentine Pavilion in Toronto.

The two BIG-designed structures, located on opposite coasts, have both been recognized for their architectural innovation. The LEED-Platinum Vancouver House was awarded the World Architecture Festival’s Future Building of the Year in 2015, while the “unzipped wall” is the first Serpentine Pavilion to embark on a multi-city tour of this kind, before ultimately landing in a permanent home on the Vancouver waterfront.

+ 4

A prominent shortlist including BIG, OMA, and UNStudio have revealed their visions for Melbourne’s landmark Southbank Precinct overhaul. The $2 billion project will be the largest single-phase project in the history of Victoria, Australia, intended as “a state-of-the-art, mixed-use environment” to be “centered around innovation in architecture and design.”

The six shortlisted schemes include twisting towers, interlocking blocks, and stacked neighborhoods, all focusing on the 6,000-square-meter BMW Southbank site. The designs were revealed at a public symposium on July 27th featuring speakers from the shortlisted firms.

+ 19

Videos

The LEGO House by Bjarke Ingels Group now has its own Netflix documentary. Taking viewers on a journey through the conception, design, construction, and opening of the LEGO House, the documentary offers an insight into the challenges faced throughout the process, and the thoughts and reflections of the project’s key contributors, including Bjarke Ingels.

“LEGO House – Home of the Brick” offers the most thorough insight yet into the scheme’s creation, detailing major early construction issues, delays, and (spoiler alert!) the ultimate successful completion of one of the most iconic pieces of architecture created in recent years. The documentary dives into the history of the LEGO brand, the vision, and importance placed on the LEGO House by the company’s directors, and perhaps most interestingly, a series of interviews with Bjarke Ingels in which he reflects on the role of LEGO in the development of his own career.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has a knack for combatting a variety of complex issues via its step-by-step approach, yielding a design that seems almost inevitable. Ingels has labeled his design strategy as a form of “architectural alchemy." This combines multiple programs or “ingredients” that on their own, would simply be seen as “normal." But in aggregate, you get more out of the mix than you would keeping them separate. The result of this looks something like a waste-to-energy plant topped by a ski-slope, or a parabolic skyscraper with a Copenhagen-style courtyard.

Inspired by BIG’s “will to find new solutions for environmental, social, economic and technological problems”, artist Giuseppe Gallo has designed these 9 posters that evaluate BIG’s unique use of syntax.

More on syntax in architecture and how you can get your own copies of the posters after the break.

BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group has unveiled images of their proposed Audemars Piguet Hotel des Horlogers, a ski hotel set in the scenic Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. The compact scheme, designed in collaboration with Cche Architecture, is defined by a zig-zag form seamlessly integrated into the smooth topography of the surrounding valley, forming a connection with the nearly Musée Atelier.

+ 11

Danish firm COBE has released images of their proposed aquatic center in Copenhagen Harbor, a scheme entered for a design competition which was won by Kengo Kuma. The proposal, designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG), formed part of COBE’s competition-winning masterplan for Paper Island, which was chosen for development in 2016.

+ 6

What if the one thing that makes BIG "BIG" was suddenly stripped away right at the apex of its potential? That's the question posed by the trailer for Kaspar Astrup Schrøder’s documentary BIG TIME, which ominously illustrated a possible problem with Bjarke Ingels’ health.

Schrøder's documentary highlights the intense journey of Bjarke Ingels, the founder of Bjarke Ingels Group, through the past few years of his life. This unique insight into what exactly it's like to be an architect on top of the world ultimately poses a question that needs to be answered by anyone seeking to reshape the world through design. How do you handle the responsibility of forming the future you want to live in?

Videos

The official inauguration for Foro Boca by Rojkind Arquitectos was held in Veracruz, México, gathering members of the local community as well as special guest Bjarke Ingels for a concert by renowned violinist Joshua Bell and the city's Philarmonic Orchestra.

“The greatest thing about being an architect,” pronounced Bjarke Ingels, “is that you build buildings.”

BIG has teamed up with Friday Labs to create the Friday Lock, “the world’s smallest smartlock.” Through the Friday app, users can unlock their doors wirelessly, as well as automatically as they leave or approach.

As an access-granted user’s phone approaches the system, the door unlocks automatically. Access can be easily granted, as well as revoked through the app, allowing for temporary users, as well as to remove access if a phone is stolen.

The BIG-designed LEGO House has topped out and is headed toward completion ahead of its just-announced grand opening date on September 28. Located near LEGO’s corporate campus, in the heart of Billund, Denmark, the LEGO experience center will provide an estimated 250,000 yearly guests with a variety of LEGO-themed activities within its 12,000 square meters, inviting visitors of all ages to play and unleash their creativity.

+ 7

From the Publisher. The May 2016 issue of a+u is a special issue dedicated to recent works by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group.

The team is engaged with projects both large and small in locations all over the world. The issue reflects that diversity, with the first half devoted to the large, urban-scale works for which the practice is best known, and the second half devoted to smaller works, including residences and a pavilion. Including those nearing completion, 20 of the 22 projects introduced here are currently underway. Over the next few years, we will see many more of their works finished.