Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
In conversation with: Clay Chandler, Fortune
In conversation with: Clay Chandler, Fortune
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Please.
00:02Joakim, we're so pleased to have you here.
00:06There are so many great projects you're working on
00:09that we want to ask you about.
00:11You're dividing up your time now
00:13between New York and Copenhagen.
00:17You just finished your big new studio in Copenhagen,
00:21is that right?
00:22Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:22We built our own building at the tip of a pier.
00:27Inside a small little park we designed,
00:29sort of reclaiming the industrial port
00:31for the future neighborhoods of the city.
00:33And for those of our audience who are New Yorkers,
00:36maybe let's tick off some of the things
00:38that you're most proud of, of your projects in New York.
00:40You've done so many.
00:42Yeah, but here in the city we started doing a VF57.
00:46It's nicknamed the court scraper
00:48because it's somehow combining the density
00:51and verticality of a skyscraper
00:53with the communal space of a courtyard building.
00:56So it looks kind of a warped pyramid
00:59on the West Side Highway.
01:00If you land in Teterboro, you'll see it sort of flying in.
01:05Right, and then the Spiral?
01:07We just finished the Spiral,
01:09which is the home of Pfizer, HSBC, and just TPG.
01:15And it's essentially a classic Manhattan skyscraper,
01:20but because we try to make the floor plates
01:22as large as possible,
01:23because tenants really want
01:24the largest possible floor plates,
01:26we rub up against the setback requirements.
01:30So instead of making a classic ziggurat
01:34with these kind of incremental steps,
01:36we distributed the setbacks in a spiral
01:40of 66 terraces that cascade up around the building.
01:45So each floor has access to their own outdoor garden
01:49with trees and plants,
01:51but they also have the potential for a double height space.
01:54So like one of the tenants have 14 floors
01:58and each floor is connected to the floor above
02:00and the floor below.
02:01So you can actually walk inside the building
02:04throughout the whole office space.
02:05So instead of like waiting endlessly at the elevator,
02:09you can actually see your colleagues several floors above
02:11and go to them.
02:13And wave to them, that's great.
02:17And I might add that actually HSBC have found
02:21that without changing their company policy,
02:23they've gone from less than 40% attendance
02:27to 80% attendance after moving into the new space.
02:30Interesting.
02:31Because the joy and productivity
02:34of being in a better space and seeing each other
02:39seems to be working more than mandate.
02:44Than badgering people to just come into the office.
02:46So I wanna talk about some of your recent
02:49kind of more futuristic projects,
02:51but before that, maybe we can go back
02:52just to kind of your origins.
02:54What drew you to architecture in the beginning?
02:57Because you started very young as an architect.
03:00No, I wanted to be a cartoonist.
03:03And in the absence of a cartoon academy in Denmark,
03:08the Royal Danish Art Academy School of Architecture
03:11was the closest match.
03:13And because architecture is free in like education,
03:19university is free in Denmark,
03:24you can be a little bit more frivolous with your choices.
03:26So I thought, spent a few years getting good
03:29at drawing buildings and landscapes.
03:32So essentially drawing the background
03:34for the stories I wanted to draw and the characters.
03:37And then I became fascinated with the background
03:40and stayed course on the plan B.
03:44Marvelous.
03:45You have a couple of sort of ideas
03:47that are associated with your work that are interesting
03:49and I hope you can maybe expand on a little bit for us.
03:52One is this idea of hedonistic sustainability,
03:57and the other is kind of practical utopianism.
04:01What do those ideas mean?
04:03No, it's the first one,
04:06like the first project we ever did
04:08is actually is the Copenhagen Harbour Bath.
04:12And it's because like two decades ago,
04:16because of investments in surface sewers and other things,
04:21like suddenly the port of Copenhagen became so clean
04:25that you could swim in it.
04:27And our first project was to design
04:28the Copenhagen Harbour Bath
04:30that essentially extends the life of the city
04:32into the water around it.
04:34And on opening day, you suddenly saw the Copenhageners
04:37jumping in the port in the middle of the city
04:38instead of taking their car for hours
04:40to get to the Hamptons
04:42or the equivalent of the Hamptons in Copenhagen.
04:45And I felt this was part of a bigger idea.
04:48The idea that the clean port is not only nice for the fish,
04:51it's amazing for the citizens that live in that city,
04:54that the sustainable city or the sustainable building
04:58is not only better for the environment,
05:00it's also more enjoyable for the people that inhabit it.
05:04And we've taken this,
05:06we've been pursuing this idea
05:07of hedonistic sustainability in various ways.
05:10But in 2019, we opened Copenhagen Harbour Bath
05:15which is the cleanest waste-to-energy power plant
05:19in the world in Copenhagen.
05:21It's so clean that the steam that comes out of the chimney
05:23is actually cleaner than the air of Copenhagen.
05:26So it's a true fact.
05:29And so the roof, we designed it,
05:33basically the machinery inside steps down.
05:37So we designed it with a sloping roof.
05:39So the facade is actually
05:41the tallest man-made climbing wall in the world.
05:44You need to be a pretty skilled climber
05:46to make it to the top.
05:48And the roof is an Alpine park
05:51where you can hike and ski,
05:53downhill all year skiing.
05:56I mean, Denmark, depressingly,
05:59never gets any medals at the Winter Olympics,
06:03but we hope eventually this could change
06:05now that the Copenhageners can.
06:07This is an extraordinary building.
06:08I mean, just show of hands,
06:09has anybody seen videos of this Copenhagen?
06:12It's actually, it's just amazing.
06:14It's a ski resort on top of a recycling plant.
06:16Actually, one of the best free solo climbers in the world
06:19recently made it to the top without harness.
06:22I'm happy, like a very stressful video to watch.
06:26Okay, so, and then practical utopianism, what's that?
06:30So that's essentially,
06:31I actually think that fundamentally a lot,
06:35and I think this transcends architecture,
06:38a lot of the key breakthroughs in technology
06:44or in culture or in politics, for that matter,
06:48could be defined as oxymorons
06:50when seemingly mutually exclusive
06:53or contradictory elements or ideas become unified.
06:58And you can say,
06:59most people would say hedonistic sustainability
07:01is an oxymoron.
07:02You should either choose enjoyment
07:05or the environment, but you can actually have both.
07:09And sometimes the better the environment,
07:11the more the enjoyment of living there, right?
07:13Similarly, pragmatic utopia is essentially this idea
07:17that if utopia is this concept of a place so perfect
07:23that it can only exist in fiction,
07:26and if pragmatism is the idea
07:28of dealing with the world as it is,
07:31then every project, every building design,
07:34every public space, every neighborhood,
07:36every master plan has the possibility
07:39to be a pragmatic utopia.
07:43And actually a great way to explain,
07:45I think the significance of architecture
07:47is the Danish word for design is formgivning,
07:52which literally means form giving,
07:55because when you're designing something,
07:57you're giving form to that which has not yet
08:00been given form.
08:02In other words, you're giving form
08:04to the future, because when you're designing a space
08:08or building, you are giving form to the world
08:11or a part of the world that you would like
08:13to find yourself living in in the future.
08:17So in that sense, and I think that is essentially
08:20the idea of pragmatic utopia,
08:21that each project becomes a small fragment
08:27of the future you would like to see happening.
08:29So I wanna talk about some of your recent projects,
08:31which are very much that,
08:33giving form to the future,
08:35and not only designing this world,
08:37but designing other worlds in some cases.
08:41There is one project that you are working on
08:43that is literally a moonshot.
08:46I wonder if we could see some images of that.
08:49Do we have, can we put up some slides here?
08:52Do we have a clicker?
08:53Oh, we do, okay, all right, good.
08:54So, all right, at least we see them.
08:59Do we have them?
09:00You can see them, okay, great.
09:01Oh, excellent, excellent.
09:02So we're working with, it's called Project Olympus.
09:06It's part of the Artemis program of NASA.
09:12Let me see here.
09:13And it's essentially working with a 3D printing company,
09:18Icon out of Austin, to develop the technology
09:22to build the first building on the moon.
09:27And it's using solar-powered lasers
09:31to essentially melt moon dust
09:34into a sort of lunar obsidian.
09:39So when you melt it in a kiln, it becomes a kind of basalt.
09:43And when you center it with lasers,
09:45it becomes what, in Game of Thrones,
09:47they would call dragon glass.
09:49So like a black glass-like, very strong stone.
09:53And in 2028, we're scheduled to land,
09:58or NASA is scheduled to land
10:00the first laser printer
10:03that essentially has a mission success
10:06is to create the equivalent of a sidewalk tile.
10:09And if that sidewalk tile passes the structural tests,
10:15then it would release the funding
10:17for making the first permanent human habitat
10:20on the south pole of the moon,
10:23essentially melting moon dust
10:24into the building material of the future.
10:26So when, if it clears that threshold,
10:28when would kind of construction
10:30and design work on that begin?
10:31Yeah, but that should be in 32.
10:33Not that far away.
10:35No, exactly, we're designing the new Philharmonic in Prague.
10:40It's scheduled to open in 32.
10:41And we're designing the new airport in Zurich.
10:45It's gonna be the largest building
10:46made out of timber, actually.
10:49But it's scheduled to open fully in 2035.
10:53So we have projects on the moon
10:55with a schedule tighter than some of our terrestrial work.
11:00My gosh, so futuristic, but not that far in the future.
11:04Amazing.
11:05Well, you mentioned that the 3D technology
11:10designed for this very kind of utopian project
11:13also has practical uses right here on planet Earth.
11:17Can you say a word about that?
11:18No, exactly, because the current technology
11:21that ICON is using, and right now we're building
11:24the first 3D printed hotel in Marfa, Texas, El Cosmico.
11:28And we just finished the first 3D printed neighborhood,
11:31Wolf Ranch in Austin, for Lennar.
11:35But it's a gantry crane,
11:38so it has a maximum print height of 11 feet
11:40and a maximum width of 30 feet.
11:43That's the span of the gantry crane.
11:44And also you need to send guys out to put down rails.
11:47Cracks.
11:48And you need to level the sides.
11:50So there's a lot of handcraft.
11:53So, of course, here we wanted to land
11:55and deploy immediately,
11:56so we got the idea of a single pivot
11:58and a kind of multi-axis arm.
12:01So to be able to deliver that technology,
12:04ICON has developed the Phoenix, the next generation,
12:07and there's a functioning prototype.
12:08And it's suddenly, instead of 11 feet,
12:11it can print 27 feet of height, so multi-stories.
12:14It has a much greater reach,
12:16and you don't need to level the sides,
12:17so you can build on much more exciting topographies.
12:20Just gonna put that albio down.
12:21So all of this means that you can deliver much faster,
12:24spending way less hours.
12:26So in a way, you increase the design freedom
12:29and the quality,
12:30but you lower the cost and increase the speed.
12:33So you end up having these positive
12:37earth-bounded side effects
12:40of trying to solve a very, very hard piece
12:42of designing engineering on the moon.
12:44So just like the moon race, the space race, and DARPA,
12:50you're seeing that this urge
12:53to solve very difficult problems
12:54ends up having fantastic spinoffs
12:57on sort of terrestrial application.
12:59Yeah.
13:00Let's talk about a different kind of utopia.
13:03The work that you're doing in Bhutan is fascinating.
13:06Maybe you could show us some of those images.
13:11Yeah, let me see.
13:12Has anyone been to Bhutan?
13:15Pretty good.
13:16It's one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
13:19Say a little bit about this.
13:20Yes, so these are different images
13:23of a project we're trying to do in Bhutan.
13:29It's not a very responsive clicker.
13:32But essentially,
13:38different sort of situations from a city
13:41we are trying to create in Bhutan
13:44called Gelefu, the Mindfulness City.
13:47And Bhutan is this incredible kingdom in the Himalayas.
13:53It borders two neighbors, China and India.
13:57So they have like 3 billion neighbors in two countries.
14:00And they manage to remain sovereign.
14:03They're also the most sustainable country in the world.
14:05They sequester almost twice as much carbon as they emit.
14:09They're powered almost exclusively with hydroelectricity.
14:12They measure their success as a nation
14:14in gross national happiness.
14:16Famous for that, yeah.
14:17Rather than typical economic parameters.
14:19But a year and a half ago,
14:21I met the king after the coronation of King Charles.
14:24He came to Copenhagen.
14:25And I found myself sitting next to him at a dinner.
14:27And he said he actually came to Copenhagen to meet me
14:32because he was thinking about creating a city
14:34on the border of India.
14:37Because the young generation of Bhutanese,
14:40they're well-educated, they speak perfect English.
14:44They go to Australia and Canada in large numbers
14:47to pursue prosperity and the excitement of the modern world.
14:51So he wanted to create a special administrative zone
14:57that could attract foreign investment
14:59and retain local talent
15:01without losing the values that make Bhutan
15:05so endearing to all of us.
15:08And what we've tried to do is we've designed a city
15:12shaped by the 34 rivers
15:15that flow from the Himalayas down to India
15:17through the sort of tropical plains
15:20at the base of the Himalayas.
15:24This is one of the bridges that crosses the river.
15:26You saw one that was a market,
15:29one that was a hospital,
15:30one that was a university.
15:32And in this environment,
15:37we're trying to imagine a city
15:38that doesn't displace nature,
15:41but actually preserves it,
15:42that doesn't displace agriculture,
15:43but integrates it into the city.
15:45A city that is built with the river rocks
15:48and the bamboo and the timber
15:49you find in abundance on the site.
15:54So essentially try to merge an environment
15:58that can attract global investment
16:00and retain local talent
16:02and attract international talent.
16:05But then also like the entire city
16:07will be powered by hydroelectricity.
16:11The building you see here
16:12is almost like a symbol of the project that,
16:16imagine it's like an Indian step well.
16:20So the rivers flow from Bhutan into India.
16:24So the patterns you see when you look closer,
16:29it's actually a series of steps.
16:32So anyone who's been standing
16:34on the top of the Hoover Dam
16:36has felt the excitement of potentially rappelling down.
16:40But here you can actually stroll down.
16:42And one of the most famous sites in Bhutan
16:45is the Tiger's Nest,
16:47a beautiful temple nested on the side of a rock.
16:51This would be the 21st century equivalent
16:56of the Tiger's Nest
16:57that you can descend down to a temple
16:59nested on the side of a dam.
17:01It's essentially a piece of architecture,
17:04a piece of engineering
17:05that converts the power of nature into electrical power.
17:08It's a piece of engineering that becomes a piece of art.
17:11It's a piece of energy infrastructure
17:13that becomes a piece of spiritual infrastructure.
17:15That's marvelous.
17:16So we hope that maybe this could be for Bhutan
17:20what the Eiffel Tower is to France
17:22or the Sydney Opera is to Australia.
17:24It's iconic, it really does.
17:25You've mentioned 3D printers.
17:28It's something that's really revolutionizing architecture.
17:31We've just got a few seconds here.
17:33Tell us quickly about how you're using AI.
17:36I mean, I think so far,
17:38AI is incredibly good at visuals.
17:41So in that sense,
17:44and I think it's because there is an abundance
17:46of image data out there.
17:49It's also very good at text
17:50because there's an abundance of text data.
17:52I think architecture,
17:55and I'd like to say that to take a picture of a building
18:00says as much about the building
18:01as a picture of a dish says about the taste of food.
18:08So in that sense,
18:10we need to find ways to feed data.
18:13And I think once we have biped robots
18:16and other kinds of domestic assistance robots,
18:20of course, we already have robots in the form of cars
18:23moving around the streets,
18:24gathering a lot about urbanism and traffic.
18:28But I think the second we start being able
18:31to harvest a much higher bandwidth data
18:34from physical environments,
18:36then we will really have the power
18:40to threaten my livelihood in a serious way.
18:45And actually with ICON,
18:48we have started a project called Vitruvius,
18:50where we are attempting to use the data
18:52that we already have to see if we can teach
18:56the next generation of artificial architects.
19:00And I mean, if you can't beat them,
19:03then at least we're gonna try to join them.
19:06Well, your work is absolutely fantastic
19:08and very exciting that you could be here with us.
19:11I suspect you will have plenty of opportunities
19:13to use your human skills for years to come.
19:16Bjarke Ingels, thank you so much for joining us.
19:18Pleasure.
19:19Great.