[W]e are getting increasingly dry zones and... it's expensive, energy-wise, to desalinate. ...[I]f we would have to desalinate the increase of water … - Bjarke Ingels

[E]scalating in scale and impact, one project is... for a new baseball stadium for the Oakland A's. ...[S]tadia ...these ...massive venues in a giant sea of parking that are only active a few days a year, baseball more than any other sport, roughly a hundred in a year... {W]e thought what if this new stadium could... be... the cultural foundation for the city? What if we could bring the ball park back into the park? ...[B]aseball started in parks and... at some point a guy got the idea to build a fence around the park and charge [for] tickets. So we thought, what if we could... bring the park back, so instead of this... enclosed stadium, what if the main concourse was... Main Street? ...[B]ecause baseball is an asymmetrical sport with the outfield, what if the entire stadium could open up to the city and the water and the views? ...[I]magine as the roof dips down it... becomes... Oakland equivalent of the , a public park that is part of the experience of the game, but 250 days of the year it's... a park for the citizens... [I]magine that 365 days a year this is part of the enjoyable space of this new neighborhood. ...[N]ormally the seats that are the furthest away from the game would be the lousiest. Her they have this amazing experience of... being a part of the park... so... that a hundred days a year they shut down access to the park, like if you have a concert in Central Park, and it becomes part of the spectator experience. All the restaurants and cafes open up to the park. ...[T]he other days they open up to the park so you can... have a coffee... So you have this... connection from the inside to the out. Above... the running track on game day is part of the circulation, and on a non-game day it's part of the experience of living in Oakland. The same for the pinic lawn... [T[he stadium doesn't become this... massive... empty white elephant, a kind of void in the city, it... becomes a... bringer of life and energy into a new neighborhood... [B]ecause of the... asymmetry in extreme you have this... incredible view out over the port towards San Francisco... For the facade we wanted to spend as little money for the enclosure as possible... [W]e need to provide some shelter from the wind, so we came up with this idea of this... louvered structure... facing the predominant direction of the wind... {W]here we have the concessions... the circulation, we need to provide wind protection so it... becomes this series of scarfs wrapped around the building... providing only the necessary protection... [E]ven if you were only trying to make this... skeletal non-building it ends up having... elegant expression. ...[W]hen you arrive, you... walk over the edge of the stadium and onto the arms of the field. To provide access and... minimize... parking, because it's part of an urban neighborhood, we can share the parking. But also we have the BART... only... a mile away, but you have to cross a 12 lane highway, and a freight train, so the simplest way of connecting is by putting a single mast... We can put a gondola that takes you straight from the BART, across both highway and train tracks, lands you on , and... you walk... across the perimeter park and into the game.

[A] last smaller building before we escalate is a cultural institution which just opened in ... bringing three different cultural institutions together in a new building: a library, a media tech, a performance space, and a contemporary art center. The art gallery's on the top to... access skylights, and connected by a shared lobby on the waterfront of the ... and... the library and the theater creating the two pillars. The art museum [is] the bridge to enclose a big public [outdoor] room. The... building finished in prefabricated concrete. You can... see that the French invented steel because they are so incredibly good at it. Also the sand in the south of France is so insanely beautiful. That's why in is maybe the only truly beautiful of the unités that Le Corbusier did, because of the quality of the sand. ...[T]he three institutions enclosing this giant outdoor urban room, where the... institutions, but also the city itself can invade. On the inside it's... 150,000 sq ft building with a $40 million dollar budget... so we had this... positive side-effect that all the finishes inside are... insanely raw. It's... concrete in different shades. ...The most important part of the building is what's not there. ...Even the furniture is cast out of concrete, some of it tiled. ...The ballerinas can look out at the square and vice versa. ...The theater ...this mosaic of tarred wood, hot-rolled steel and black concrete to create the perfect... acoustic mix, and finally this... art barn at the top and a sculptural park... [I]n this very... simple building... the main gesture... providing this... new shaded and covered outdoor space for the cultural life of the city.

[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.