Bjarke Ingels

Architect

1974-10-02

Bjarke Ingels is a Danish architect and founder of the Bjarke Ingels Group. He is known for contemporary urban and civic projects that combine sustainability and bold formal design.

Quotes by Bjarke Ingels

I think if I would have started BIG in America, I would probably never have called it BIG. There was nothing but a little bit of local small country humor in the idea.
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Something like 'Abstract' can really give people access to the behind-the-scenes of how our physical surroundings take shape.
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Sustainability can't be like some sort of a moral sacrifice or political dilemma or a philanthropical cause. It has to be a design challenge.
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In the traditional modernist planning that created the suburbs, you put residential buildings in suburban neighborhoods, office spaces into brain parks and retail in shopping malls. But you fail to exploit the possibility of symbiosis or synthesis that way.
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Architects have to become designers of eco-systems. Not just designers of beautiful facades or beautiful sculptures, but systems of economy and ecology, where we channel the flow not only of people, but also the flow of resources through our cities and buildings.
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I think the avant-garde often hides itself in the highly incomprehensible because they are frustrated that the real world is so boring.
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Today, we have sophisticated building technology: we can calculate and simulate the environments and performance of the building, the thermal exposure of envelop, or the air flow through an urban space or structure.
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When I started studying architecture, people would say, you know, 'Can you tell me why are all modern buildings so boring?' Because, like, people had this idea that in the good old days, architecture had, like, ornament and little towers and spires and gargoyles, and today, it just becomes very practical.
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If you are not able to transmit what you're trying to achieve to your collaborators, you will only have minions - or morons.
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Silicon Valley has been this global engine of innovation and economic growth over the last few decades, but a tidal wave of innovation that has been focused very much in the digital realm.
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