Bjarke Ingels Quotes

Ideas migrate, structures grow and concepts develop in a form of architectural evolution.

[A]ll of these projects are examples of how... the future can not only be more sustainable, but... more fun to work in and more beautiful to live in.

This idea of a power plant so clean that we can turn it into a mountain meadow is part of an idea that we call hedonistic sustainability... that clean technology is not only better for the environment, it also is much more enjoyable for the poeple living there... [W]e discovered this idea more than two decades ago when we completed our first project. ...We designed the , extending the life of the city into the water around it... [W]e also designed the harbour bath in ... [T]here was something special happening... that a clean port is not only nice for the fish, it's also amazing for the citizens... they don't have to drive... for hours to get to the beach... They can... jump into the port in the middle of the city.

In the last 100 years we six times doubled our consumption [0.7 trillion m³ in 1900, to 4 trillion m³ in 2018] of water. ...Most of it goes to agriculture, and of the agriculture, most goes into meat.

This is an art museum we designed in Norway, in a sculpture park... on two sides of a river, and we suggested that the museum could be the bridge... from one side... to the other. ...As the building crosses the river ...it zips closed the daylight. ...[I]t's made out of standard extruded aluminum profiles ...to make warehouses... A lot of identical elements put together in a carefully orchestrated way. Inside it is... white painted 2x4 timber... and again, by gently shifting the orientation... by leaving half of them open, we have all of the... ventilation for state of the art... climate control, all the lighting... It's... creating something extraordinary out of a lot of ordinary. ...[A] museum that is also a bridge that is also a sculpture, in a sculpture park.

[W]e started looking... at water. This is how much water we have [1.4 billion km³ compared to earth's volume of 1,100 billion km³]... [V]ery little of it [2 1/2%] is freshwater... and of the fresh water, very little is surface freshwater, 30$ is groundwater and 2/3 is glaciers... [O]f the surface freshwater 3% is in the atmosphere, 1/4 of it is in all living things... 1/2% in rivers, 6% in soil moisture, and swamps, 20% in lakes, and... 2/3 in ground ice. So basically water is saltwater and freshwater is ice.

[T]he idea of the Vltava Philharmonic is to... celebrate the journey of the Vltava river, the Vltava symphony, the journey from the stream, the source in the mountains... through the ... through dams, through cities, and eventually to [Prague]... Imagine an architecture that... is... a journey from the river to the roof... as public... engaging and inviting... To bring the... the life of the city center down to the river. Create a landmark... for the neighborhood, for the city. To resolve this... of trams... trains... highways... metro stops... pedestrians and cars, in a three dimensional city, to create a literal and accessible connection to the river, to provide... an active social environment for the fine performing arts... also for the popular culture... to create this... perfectly tuned instrument for the performance and delivery of symphonic music. ...[F]rom this incredibly rational, orthoganal diagram, use the public realm, the canopies, the es and the s to create a public destination, and similarly in plan, to blur the distinction between inside and outside by pulling out the canopies to connect with the environment to create a zone that is neither indoor nor outdoor, that is protected from the rain and shaded from the sun... [T]his kind of very basic principle created this building that... starts at the edge of the water and winds itself up to the main level of the city and the bridge, and from here creates a series of destinations and lookouts... to the top of the city. ...[A] music student can walk all the way up to class on the outside of the building. ...[T]he highway... has... been overflown, so instead of having cars dominating the waterfront... it becomes public life. ...[Y]ou don't really know where the building ends or the city begins, and you have... generous spaces where public life is invited to enter and linger. ...From the city side you can see into... green rooms, rehearsal rooms and... a culture hub with musical studios. ...[A]t night the... transparency... illuminates the wooden... [ceilings] made out of locally sourced timber. Towards the water... pulling out the balconies and... terraces you get these... lookouts... almost at the... water's edge. [A]... pavement made out of locally sourced stone and the... integration of greenery... blurs the distinction between what is park, what is plaza, what is building... [S]tepping of stones create a series of... hangout spaces or... informal performance spaces. ...[W]hat could... sometimes be construed as a... , highbrow cultural institution becomes a very... welcoming and accessible landscape of... familiar local materials, and an abundance of places with views... shade... sun and shelter. ...[O]n the plaza level between the city and the traffic of the main street... a very permeable zone that also becomes an informal hangout space, so before performances or after, a place to linger... [W]hen the [day]light drops and the... [interior lighting] energy arises the building... comes alive when it starts... inviting guests for the performances. ...[E]ven though all of the... sloping roofs are... gentle in their ascent, at certain angles it... becomes this... incredibly dramatic overlapping of forms. ...Arriving across the bridge you... have the choice to connect... to the plaza... passing through the trees of the plaza that provide shade... having a major arrival plaza in front of the . The foyer wraps the city and the riverfront... [A] building without a... back side.

So what are our energy sources? We have 4... the sun, that provides photovoltaics, solar heating, fossil fuels, wind power is all... solar energy; Earth... thermal energy..; the moon, tidal turbine energy... because of gravity; and nuclear energy... So... all the different forms of energy are related... Gravity creates pressure, nuclear activity through fusion provides sunlight. Through sunlight is translating into chemical energy that can... be burned to provide heat, that with an engine can be translated into kinetic movement, that can then be turned into electricity... [O]ver the years we've been... mastering more... of these translations... [A]ny kind of energy source is translation... so a water mill or hydropower is gravity turned into kinetic movement and from there into electricity. Nuclear fission is nucler energy translated into heat and from there into mechanical and electrical. Batteries: from chemical to electrical... [I]f you look at the energy storage vs. batteries... It's not very efficient. 1/2 ton of batteries has the same stored energy as 5 kilos or 10 lbs. of hydrogen.

This is , the capitol of Albania... [W]e were invited to imagine their National Theatre. ...It is pinched to perform a gateway between the Plaza... and... City Hall on the other side, and that... wrinkled opening creates a covered plaza that is the entrance into the theatre. ...[A] very simple ...public gesture that becomes an invitation... shading from the Mediterranean sun, made out of... red upcycled concrete. ...The national color of Albania is red. We found this beautiful red stone ...locally sourced. ...The main hall is faceted out of hot-rolled steel ...a mixture of perforated and reflective surfaces creates the perfectly calibrated acoustics, almost like an of black steel. ...The second auditorium can ...open its backstage out to the roof, and the ...roof becomes a ...starlit, open-air performance space. ...[W]e've tried to squeeze as much creative energy and performance possibility into the smallest possible volume. It's currently under construction. ...[I]t's going to be a building that looks different because it performs differently.

[W]e could only place buildings in the footprints of where there had been buildings in the past... a very limited repertoire.

Architecture is most appealing with simple lines and clear ideas. A city... becomes alive when it is rich with experiences and surprises. So the paradoxical challenge is to... create simplicity and variety, difference and coherence... a city in the building.

There's another aspect, which is the shine effect. So , the Anish Kapoor patented black, the least reflective material on earth, had a shine effect of zero, and perfect white, of one... [A]n ocean or a parking lot has almost no shine effect so it absorbs a lot of heat. So the more open ocean... the more parking lots, the more heat is absorbed, whereas fresh snow has a... good shine effect... [T]o give you an idea of how impactful this is, if earth was all ocean we would have an average temperature of 27°C. Today it's 15°C... If 1/3 of the planet was glacial, it would be frozen. So 1% of change in the shine effect of earth is the equivalent of doubling the amount of <chem>CO2</chem> in the atmosphere. So it's also an important factor that... now works against us.

A decade after, we opened the Danish Pavilion in Shanghai. The subject for the World Expo was "Better Cities, Better Life," and we thought of the pavilion as a condensation of all the things that make Danish cities more sustainable and... more enjoyable. ...We recreated the harbour bath ...and we were looking for common denominators between Denmark and China ...[W]e found that in the Chinese public school curriculum they have three fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, one being... , the national symbol of Denmark, so we proposed to move the mermaid [statue] to China. I had to go to Parliament to argue the case, and... we got her.

Sustainable ideas crystallize through an immensity of wasted efforts. ...Good ideas are sometimes resurrected from fossils of past evolutions.

In a similar loop, methane only stays in the atmosphere for 9 years, but because every year we're releasing another 10 million tons, primarily because of rice fields and animals, it's also adding to the equation...