Striking a balance between Steve Jobs’ product-launching gravitas and the bounding playfulness of a TED-talker, Bjarke Ingels presented a summary of his firm’s work on social infrastructure at the WIRED Business Conference in New York on Tuesday. Instead of displaying static plan sections and a PowerPoint from the last presidential administration, Ingels peppered his talk with creative imagery and a three minute, bass-groove laden video (replete with jaunty squiggle-style animations over live people) illustrating the underlying concepts of “The Dryline.”
The projects that Ingels briefly highlighted, including the Danish National Maritime Museum, the Hellerup Gymnasium, and the Vancouver House all explored how to integrate and amplify the social dynamics of a given space by encouraging greater connectivity among likely inhabitants. This was done in some places by innovatively inverting expectations of what a space should be (converting a dock into a museum, for example) or by creating more common areas that would foster unexpected interaction, a la Google. The lecture distinguished itself by being both intellectually engaging and performatively vigorous: Ingels’ energy seemed better matched to that of a stand-up comedian than a man invested in the complexities of urban planning and design. By relying on the video and graphically vibrant imagery, Ingels managed to turn what could have been a twenty-minute drone-fest into a peppy, engaging presentation.
Bjarke explained that his favorite aspect of architecture was the quality of “turning fiction into fact,” wherein seemingly impossible ideas were gradually realized through exploration. From the real-life energy factory / ski slope that blows out perfectly shaped smoke rings from its chimney, to a “courtscraper” (a landscaped combination of courtyard and skyscraper), Ingels seemed sincere when he closed his presentation with the line, “I think we should make the world of the future more like our dreams.”
You can listen to our Archinect Sessions interview with Bjarke here. Or, traipse back through Bjarke's many speaking engagements:
60 Comments
He's sooo dreamy!
Did he do the Macarena?
I miss boring, serious lectures.
All your dreams can come true, if you only believe, and hire BIG.
"ski slope that blows out perfectly shaped smoke rings from its chimney" Cool!!!
one mans dreams is anothers nightmare
the smoke ring installation is cool but BIG didnt do it...it was desigmed by an art studio called realities unitied
He is a marketing genius, for sure.
one mans dreams is anothers nightmare
We need overlords to tell us which dreams to have.
It also blows smoke up somewhere...
how can anybody take him seriously his website address is: www.big.dk
Miles, we already have overlords that control our dreams...we call them them the media...
Bjarke is actually a robot designed by marketing people to attend conferences.
So much hate for BIG. It makes me want him to succeed even more.
The future is here
It's not hate, it's just that he comes across as a motivational speaker.
BTW, I love that futuristic imagery. Now that I'm older, I think about the energy required to build and run those col towers and how one maintains all those gleaming metal connections.
so he didn't come up with the smoke ring?
Hate is a strong word. Bjarke the comic book artist in 2010 was ok, but Bjarke in 2015 is dubious and oppressive in all of the same ways that U2 in 2015 is-complete with unbuttoned shirt and suit. Wouldn't be surprised if he attends Burning Man with Google douches at this point.
Keep telling yourselves that its not hate.
I'll keep waiting for substantive criticism.
By the way, I was also told that TWBTA didn't really design the Folk Art Museum facade. But I dismissed it as spiteful nonsense.
davvid, you are seriously the most defensive modernista here, although at least you don't resort to insults. I find his work childish, not evil. I reserve hate for those who hurt the innocent. This guy's having a blast. More power to him...
the big.dk is doing the Smithsonian!............a while ago i was in this space, a former homeland security space and guess what was being used to prop doors open? BIG models in boxes made for shipping.....
It'd be helpful (here, and in the general discourse) to reserve the word "hate" for actual hatred, not just disagreements or ordinary dislike.
citizen,
what would you describe as actual hatred?
Thayer-D,
Ingels has been pushing very hard for over a decade and its now paying off for him. In that same time, I've seen plenty of "hip" "young" firms flounder or fall flat. I've also seen tons of drab cynical garbage designed by architects who pride themselves on not being showy or intellectual.
Ultimately, if you don't like the work of BIG, come up with something more compelling to take its place. This is a profession. Each of us has the opportunity to contribute something that reflects what we'd rather see.
If the facade was the only interesting thing about the Folk Art Museum, I would care more about the origin of that idea.
The problem I have (not hate) with BIG is the same problem that exists in many of this generations media darlings (like Jeanne Gang). If they are being held up by the media as this generations great architects, there should be greater scrutiny of the quality of the work. The "architecture" here looks like a marketing gimmick which doesn't extend to the interior. They seam better suited for Las Vegas than anything. Compare this to the work of their "mentor" Koolhaas where the design process is very inside-and-out.
The Aqua Tower, W57 (i.e. 8 House redux) make architecture seem like a marketing front for developers--there's a gimmick and some cheapo detailing on the inside. And here's your TED talk to distract you from the reality. And yet they are media darlings because there isn't much serious media left.
I don't need to come up with something more compelling than BIG because I'm not competing against him. And if I was, I would try to make it more beautiful than compelling. I like to inspire people's own dreams rather than force them to live mine.
Each of us, (including those without a voice) deserve to contribute what they'd rather see. Just because this guy comes off a bit thin doesn't mean he should be quiet. BTW, the next time you jump down the throat of somebody who enjoys traditional buildings, think about what you said. If you truly believed in a pluralistic world, you would be promoting traditional, modernist and bi-curious architecture be taught in our schools today.
You'd think that your axe would be plenty sharp by now, what with all the grinding. ;)
Who needs an axe? That's so 19th century,?
"Bi-curious architecture" sounds like another BIG manifesto that means nothing. I know what you mean though.
"Making your dreams come true" makes architects sound like prostituties and con artists. Yes, I know what PJ said lets not go there (his work speaks for itself too).
Bjarchitecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIzIi3TJiP8
Seems like both Sho and Bjarke have taken the OMA fetishization of process and diagrams and put that in front. Seems very of the current time in design and curation: narrative as content. Product and future not of interest. The problem is that the diagram is not a finished product.
The future Arch History and Theory classes will revere Bjarke and REM the same way we see Corbu + Kahn - The Diagram is the new architecture process
^ doubt it...That's like saying the music history books will revere Rihanna the same as Aretha Franklin...21st century fame is a much cheaper kind
for the easily amused
I think the rise of the diagram mirrors the rise of the public's desire to know why a building looks "weird". The public wants to know that their buildings are pragmatic and logical but also fun and rich with amenities.
Even this act of commenting on a blog and pooh-poohing artistic whimsy affirms the methods of BIG and OMA.
^I think you are right. I also suspect that these diagrams are post rationalizations...
The future was here 30 years ago.
The whole fascination about 'the diagram' is interesting. To me it goes to how self important architects think of themselves, especially people like REM. They used to talk about this 20 some years ago when the 'process' was the whole deal, not the product, except it's only the product the public will ever know, so no matter how interesting the diagram and process might have been, it's ultimately irrelevant to a public that will never see them. This focus on anything but the user's experience is one of the reasons the AIA needs to promote an architects service, because the public senses that (big name) architects design for them selves and not the broader community, that it's an insiders game.
"I think the rise of the diagram mirrors the rise of the public's desire to know why a building looks "weird". The public wants to know that their buildings are pragmatic and logical but also fun and rich with amenities.
The public could give two shits about the diagram. BIGOMA live in their own cloistered world.
the diagram itself is a global massive post rationalization process to simplify what many architects, developers, builders, zoning officials have been doing for years or centuries.......................the diagram is like a 3rd year studio project and it does communicate the aparrant intention of the architect.......................a plan is a basic diagram,so why we getting excited by all this elementary shit??!?............................. much of what OMA is and REX do looks like what no-name 70's high rise architects were doing without the use of a 'diagram', or maybe they had them but were too busy being architects to peddle it to academic institutions.................the diagram via the computer became parametrics and in this sense is the most 'pure' - abstract assembly of the architectural process..................................is this academic architecure for dummies session over? can we accept this as second nature and also worry about how building are put together in the world known as REAL life?................you want to make money being an architect and find a useful roll in society - quit dicking around with diagrams.............over it.
^that and this article seem relevant somehow.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/05/the-humanists-paradox/391622/
it is thayer-d........AI equal to human intelligence will never happen (to lenghty to fully explain), which is analogous to diagrams and other abstracted formulated processes of practice never equaling genuinely created works or parts of the architecture process. (also too lengthy to fully explain)
For OMA the diagram was a means to a dynamic end, but now the diagram is the end--the marketing gimmick, the online meme. It's an anti-humanist method and process. If this has to do with anything it's the median new obsession with statistics, maps and data over everything.
Why is the court-scraper a good idea? Why is the Google bubbles a good workplace? It doesn't matter, because we merged the scyscraper and the courtyard. um ok. But how is that good? Look at the diagram! It's a court-scraper! Ok.
"the diagram itself is a global massive post rationalization process to simplify"
First off, diagrams always simplify. Thats how/why they work. Diagrams pull out one aspect of reality to explain.
But I think the broad claim that the diagram is post-rationalization is overblown (as is the marketing/PR howl we hear again and again). I'm sure there is some post-rationalism and "cleaning-up" the story after a project is complete, but I also think that the logic of the diagram is being used to generate forms. Many architects will often sketch a diagram at the very beginning of the process, especially if there is a complex mix of programs. Whether the built product is a "direct" translation of the diagram is irrelevant.
---
Also Thayer-D's claim that the public never sees the diagram is hard to reconcile with Lightperson's claim that the diagram is a tool for marketing. I suppose my parents won't see a BIG diagram, but then again they don't really care that much about architecture. They're also not likely to see a floor plan or buy a copy of Detail magazine. My colleagues, on the other hand, pay very close attention to the drawings, diagrams, descriptions etc.
There is a difference when the diagram is used as process or sincere design inquiry vs. diagram as kind of pictorial simplification tool. A diagram used to understand foot traffic paths is different than one used to sell a form.
But I'm trying to understand what makes stacking blocks or how this process makes for a better building when I see interior shots that look cheap and developer-y. You really need to start over and think more inside out on a smaller level.
If they are being held up by the media as this generations great architects, there should be greater scrutiny of the quality of the work.
+++ Lightperson, with the understanding that the media doesn't know shit and only exists to sell advertising, which determines how everything is portrayed.
basically what lightperson said......fineprint yes communication, but communication is not architecture, its comminication about architecture...........the diagram is this happy simple solution you show after the study and as lightperson is stating much more clearer than I, somehow the diagram became the goal........
Museums do the same thing now: information packages and narratives as content. Then you look at the inflatable house that doubles as a parachute and say.... What?
the media, marketing and academica are all converged now--there is a literal melding of the three. The previous separation, even if not always complete, was healthy for the industry. Now it's just branding language 24/7. Everyone is selling the same thing... Stolen Koolhaas mojo sold off to every developer, kind of like how every crappy modernist building is not a Mies.
Well that's the point isn't it.
What is the W57 and 8 house but the same concept.. a form that justifies the existence of another cheap glass condo. The vertical street concept of the 8 house is too steep to climb, and the interiors look typical.
I'm sure they are fine places and I'm only being hard here because we are being presented with BIG as the new thing with a superior process. But like everything now, it feels designed for the Internet.
What's the over under before we hear "disruptive architect"? 3 weeks?
Perhaps resistance is futile to our robot overlords.
I will show you in your dreams...
Well the 8 house is the only built work I can gauge. Go and look for yourself.
Here's a good quote from Herzog:
"A well-designed building helps people understand their city in a different way. Most importantly, a museum should never be about the architect."
"Architecture needs craftsmanship; otherwise, it remains just wallpaper and cannot compete over time with other offerings in the lives of people."
So that's plus one and minus one for BIG
Never forget
^ A proposal for Dubya's Presidential Library?
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