Bjarke Ingels Group: The Latest Architecture and News

As Milan Design Week continues to set avant-garde design trends for the upcoming years, the 2019 Salone del Mobile’s lighting biennale, Euroluce, saw a nod to classic designs mixed with contemporary craftsmanship.

Two dominant trends at this year’s Euroluce are ‘rediscovering the past’ and a ‘reference to nature’. Vintage lighting pieces were rediscovered, not only to serve as valuable tokens of the past, but as foundation for new research. The reference to nature is evidently the most dominant design trend at this year’s lighting biennale, as designers found inspiration from natural, organic forms, and produced their pieces with eco-friendly material.

However, some of the most unique pieces at this year’s Euroluce were developed in collaboration with heavyweights in the world of design. Profound architects found their way into the 2019 Euroluce, bringing together their design skills with the engineering solutions of design companies.

Bjarke Ingels Group has released details of their proposed landscape urbanism project in Brooklyn, New York, transforming a six-lane highway into a connected realm between the city and waterfront. The scheme centers on the Robert Moses-designed Brooklyn Queens Expressway, dating back to the 1960s.

As part of UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda, Bjarke Ingels Group has proposed a vision for the world’s first resilient and sustainable floating community, designed to accommodate 10,000 people. “Oceanix City” is a response to the prediction that by 2050, 90% of the world’s largest cities will be exposed to rising seas, resulting in mass displacement, and the destruction of homes and infrastructure. The scheme is anchored in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, enacting circular flows of food, energy, water, and waste.

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A revised design has been released for the Oakland Athletics baseball stadium, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, James Corner Field Operations, and Gensler. 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. The mega-ballpark includes a waterfront circular stadium at Howard Terminal and would turn the current Coliseum site into a tech and housing hub.

Under the redesign, the previous “diamond box” stadium is replaced by an open, circular scheme. Encompassing the playing field, a coliseum-like seating arrangement steadily bows own to the entrance area, topped by a landscaped green roof.

Construction has begun on “The Spiral,” a 1,031-foot-tall project in New York’s Hudson Yards designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. The fifth supertall to be added to the area, The Spiral was commissioned by developer Tishman Speyer as part of the ongoing revitalization of the Midtown West region of Manhattan.

The tower is named after its defining feature - an "ascending ribbon of lively green spaces" that extend the High Line "to the sky," says Bjarke Ingels. The scheme will offer 2.85 million of office space, with the anchor tenant Pfizer occupying 18 floors, according to New York YIMBY.

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Bjarke Ingels Group has designed an expansive cable-car system to connect to the new Oakland Athletics baseball stadium. The new stadium will replace the Oakland A’s existing 51-year-old Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum as a waterfront “jewel box” at Howard Terminal. At the Oakland A’s FanFest, the A’s President Dave Kaval unveiled the new Gondola connecting the Oakland Convention Center to Water Street at Jack London Square. The zero-emission transit line will provide residents and visitors with a way to see the A’s play in their future ballpark.

The American Institute of Architects has selected nine projects for its 2019 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture. The award program celebrates the best contemporary architecture and highlights the many ways buildings and spaces can improve lives. AIA’s five-member jury selects submissions that demonstrate design achievement, including a sense of place and purpose, ecology, environmental sustainability and history.

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After revealing the design for the new Oakland Athletics baseball stadium, Bjarke Ingels Group has proposed a new use for the existing 51-year-old Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The existing stadium will be overhauled into a new commercial and housing hub to create new economic, cultural, and recreational opportunities. The Coliseum will be converted into a sunken amphitheater at the heart of a new municipal park.

New photographs by Paul Clemence from Archi-Photo show BIG -Bjarke Ingels Group’s “The Eleventh” taking shape as construction continues in Chelsea, Manhattan. Having topped out in August 2018, the scheme’s twisting geometries are taking their place within the “Pritzker District” with neighbors including Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, Jean Nouvel’s 100 11th Avenue and Foster + Partners’ 551 West 21st Street.

The development’s larger 35-story, 400-foot-tall structure will twist alongside a second 300-foot-tall sister tower, both clad with bronze and travertine, sharing a connected podium and skybridge.

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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.

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Update: The Kickstarter campaign launched by BIG to fund the development of their steam ring generator reached its goal of $15,000 in less than a week after it was launched. As of today (24th August) the campaign total stands just short of $25,000, with 19 days still to go.

BIG has launched a Kickstarter campaign, aiming to fund the ongoing research and prototyping of the "steam ring generator" designed to crown the firm's Waste-to-Energy power plant in Copenhagen. The campaign was announced on Friday and picked up a lot of steam (pun intended) in the design press - but at ArchDaily we were hesitant to publish news of the campaign because, in short, it led us into a minefield of questions about the role of invention, public engagement, and money in architecture.

Of course, BIG are far from the first to attempt to crowdfund an architectural project. Previous projects however have generally focused on otherwise-unfundable proposals for the public good, barely-sane moonshots or complex investment structures which depending on your viewpoint may or may not even count as crowdfunding. BIG are perhaps the first example of an established architectural firm attempting to crowdfund the design of a project that is already half-built, causing some people - ArchDaily staff included - to ask: "Why wasn't this money included in the project's budget?"

Bjarke Ingels has become know for his “promiscuous hybrids" that are reshaping skylines worldwide. Now, after news of BIG's redesign of the 2 World Trade Center, Ingels is being credited for single-handedly transforming New York City's architecture. At the New York Times' Cities of Tomorrow conference last week, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman sat down with the 40-year-old Danish architect to discuss just how BIG is changing New York.

Join the CTBUH New York City Chapter for a discussion on the VIA 57 West building. Guest speakers Bjarke Ingels (BIG), Aine Brazil (Thornton Tomasetti), and Jeff Crompton (Hunter Roberts) will discuss the architecture, engineering and the construction process behind this unique structure. VIA stands tall at 467 feet and is one of the most architecturally distinctive buildings constructed in New York City. The building provides a dramatic visual gateway to Manhattan’s skyline along the Hudson River. VIA is a hybrid between the European perimeter block and a traditional Manhattan high-rise development. The building’s unique shape combines the advantages of both: the compactness and efficiency of a courtyard building providing density, a sense of intimacy, and expansive views. The form of the building shifts depending on the viewer’s vantage point. While appearing like a pyramid from the West Side Highway, it turns into a dramatic glass spire when seen from West 58th Street.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that BIG may replace Foster + Partners to realize the World Trade Center 2 (WTC2) tower - the final tower planned to be built on Ground Zero. The 79-story tower, originally designed in 2006, was stalled due to the economic crash of 2008.

According to the report, 21st Century Fox and News Corp have "tipped" BIG to redesign the tower should they strike an agreement with project backers Silverstein Properties and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to move into the tower. If the deal goes through, the two companies would occupy nearly half of the building - enough to kickstart development.

One of the six winners of the Rebuild by Design competition, Bjarke Ingels Group’s (BIG) “Dry Line” project aims to protect Manhattan from future storms like Hurricane Sandy by creating a protective barrier around lower Manhattan. The barrier will be formed by transforming underused waterfront areas into public parks and amenities. Now, you can learn more about the vision behind the project and how it was developed in a webinar led by Jeremy Alain Siegel, the director of the BIG Rebuild by Design team and head of the subsequent East Side Coastal Resiliency Project. The webinar will take place on Friday, June 12. Learn more and sign-up on Performance.Network.