28 Quotes by Bjarke Ingels
Bjarke Ingels, a Danish architect, has garnered international acclaim for his innovative and unconventional approach to design. His architectural firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), is known for creating bold, imaginative, and sustainable buildings that defy traditional norms and challenge the status quo. Ingels's designs often incorporate elements of nature, functionality, and social engagement, resulting in structures that are not only visually striking but also environmentally conscious and community-oriented.
From the striking Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen to the innovative Via 57 West in New York City, Ingels's portfolio showcases his ability to blend art, technology, and social responsibility in his architectural creations. His work has garnered numerous awards and accolades, solidifying his reputation as a visionary architect pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the built environment. Ingels's approach to design embodies a commitment to creating spaces that harmonize with their surroundings and serve the needs of the people who inhabit them, making him a leading figure in the field of contemporary architecture.
Bjarke Ingels Quotes
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.
A kid in Minecraft can build a world and inhabit it through play. We have the possibility to build the world that we want to inhabit.
The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn't mean that it's unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it's crystal-clear. And if you can't explain it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's so brilliant that ordinary mortals can't fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.
The one thing all humans share is that we all inhabit the same limited amount of real estate, which is Planet Earth.
We can engineer a building and design a building with least reliance on active machinery to make it inhabitable.
In Copenhagen, there's a long-term commitment to creating a well-functioning pedestrian city where all forms of movement - pedestrian, bicycles, cars, public transportation - are accommodated with equal priority.
If you are not able to transmit what you're trying to achieve to your collaborators, you will only have minions - or morons.
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.
New York is flat - it's ideal for bicycling.
All evidence shows that we are actually getting smarter. Roughly we are getting 10 IQ points smarter every decade. The speed of innovation is also faster.
Our cities are not polluted or congested because they have to be. They are what they are because that's how we made them.
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.
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.
Something like 'Abstract' can really give people access to the behind-the-scenes of how our physical surroundings take shape.
The 'International Style of Modernism' came with the advent of building services. In the end, the architecture became like a container space, essentially like a boring box with a basement full of machinery to make it inhabitable. As a result, buildings literally started to look identical all over the planet.
It's legendary how architectural lectures can be incredibly boring.
In the big picture, architecture is the art and science of making sure that our cities and buildings fit with the way we want to live our lives.
Design our world so that we have positive social and environmental side effects.
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.
One of the dilemmas of architecture in general is that there is a Catch-22 - you can't actually get to be commissioned to do certain types of building until you've already built that type of building. So it seems to be incredibly hard to get going.
For me, architecture is the means, not the end. It's a means of making different life forms possible.
People outside the profession of architecture perhaps often lack the understanding of how their physical environment comes into being. What are the processes, the concerns and considerations? What are the parameters that shape the world around them?
St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You have wonderful parks, birds singing in the trees, manatees in the water, pelicans. So it's like this little paradise on Earth.
Instead of trying to change people, we could change the world. (Meaning)
You can say, like, planet Earth has an existing geology, and what we do as human beings and as architects is that we try to sort of alter and modify and expand the geology.
Architecture is restricted to such a limited vocabulary. A building is either a high-rise or a perimeter block or a town house.
Maybe our work appeals to some people more than others. But the opportunities that I present to my colleagues are completely uninfluenced by gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion.
It's legendary how architectural lectures can be incredibly boring.
― Bjarke Ingels Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
