An example of BIG's proposal for functional protective infrastructure for Manhattan. GIF: WIRED Design/Source: BIG
An example of BIG's proposal for functional protective infrastructure for Manhattan.
A render of BIG's proposal for what to do with a new power plant that makes energy from trash: turn it into a ski slope. BIG
A render of BIG's proposal for what to do with a new power plant that makes energy from trash: turn it into a ski slope.
The existing Manhattan shoreline. BIG
The existing Manhattan shoreline.
BIG's proposal for functional infrastructure. BIG
BIG's proposal for functional infrastructure.
Some riverside storefronts. BIG
Some riverside storefronts.
Which could be turned into a flood-proof barrier during storms. BIG
Which could be turned into a flood-proof barrier during storms.
BIG's underground gym, with a ceiling dictated by the mathematical equation for a ball rising and falling. BIG
BIG's underground gym, with a ceiling dictated by the mathematical equation for a ball rising and falling.
Aboveground. BIG
Aboveground.
Superkilen park in Copenhagen BIG
Superkilen park in Copenhagen
One of the international features: a thai kickboxing ring. BIG
One of the international features: a thai kickboxing ring.
A Kazakh bus stop. BIG
A Kazakh bus stop.
Bjarke Ingels is an architect who isn’t afraid to think weird. When a competition solicited ideas for what to do with a huge trash-munching power plant soon to be built in his native Copenhagen, Ingels’ studio, BIG, submitted the sort of idea you’d expect from a precocious first-grader: They suggested turning it into an massive artificial ski slope. To the firm’s surprise, the proposal won, and by 2017 or so when the project’s complete, it will no longer seem odd to spend a day skiing on a mountain of trash.
To Ingels, this is architecture at its most exciting—when it brings the world we live in a little bit closer to the world of our dreams. Yesterday, at the morning session of the WIRED by Design conference, the architect broke down some of the big ideas that inform these sort of radical designs.
Bjarke Ingels. Ben Rasmussen/WIRED
Information-Driven Decisions
For BIG, no decision is arbitrary. Every project starts with a rigorous research process. “We learn everything we can before we start thinking about our intervention,” Ingels explains. In some cases, that means research on sites and materials. In other cases, the data can be playfully incorporated into the design itself.
When Ingels was tapped by his high school math teacher to create a handball court for the architect’s former school, BIG had two choices for where to put it: on the soccer field or in the courtyard. The firm chose a third option: underneath the courtyard. Ultimately, they used a bit of data to shape the design. The ceiling of the subterranean gym took its form from a mathematical equation for a ballistic object rising and falling. In other words, the roof of the handball gym is the exact arc of a handball thrown through the air.
The underground gym’s ceiling was shaped by an equation for the arc of a thrown ball. BIG
Open-Source Design
Since architecture is made for people to live with and enjoy, Ingels’ firm often looks to include regular people in the design process. His work on a park in Copenhagen’s most diverse neighborhood offers a perfect example. Instead of trying to come up with some sort of aesthetic compromise for the public space, his team came up with a design that actively reflected the diverse community.
An s-curve bench from Mexico City in BIG’s Superkilen park. BIG
BIG asked people from the neighborhood for their favorite public objects from their native countries. Then, the firm imported them wholesale into the design. The result is a park with a Jamaican boombox, a Finnish bike rack, and a Kazakh bus stop–one that’s “so much cooler” than a standard Danish stop, Ingels points out. There’s an S-curve bench from Mexico City that lets the two people sitting in it look each other in the eye—right next to a circular Belgian bench that forces everyone to look away from each other. Visitors can use a smartphone app to learn the story behind each object.
Finding Beauty in Brutal Necessity
BIG’s currently in the middle of perhaps its most ambitious project yet: storm-proofing Manhattan against future catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy. By tackling the project neighborhood by neighborhood, the aim is to create protective infrastructure that doubles as useful public space.
The effort combines the data-driven and community-centric approaches of the two previous projects. In some areas on Manhattan’s East side where only four feet of protection are needed to hold back waters anticipated for a fifty year flood, undulating, riverfront benches could serve as a functional dam. In other areas that could see more intense tides, covered storefronts could convert quickly into massive flood proof walls.
BIG’s proposal for Manhattan includes a museum with a rad half-underwater observation room. BIG
BIG worked closely with the various New York City neighborhoods involved to figure out which sort of structures were most attractive to them specifically. Ingels jokingly refers to the approach as a “lovechild” of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. It’s unglamorous but necessary infrastructure that respects and, ideally, enriches the community it’s to be located in. The plan recently received over 300 million in federal grant money.
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Recently, BIG’s been trying to work out one nagging detail of its trash mountain ski slope plan. Instead of having a chimney belching smoke, they wanted one that playfully puffed out a gigantic steam ring at regular intervals. It proved a tough engineering challenge—it turns out no one really specializes in industrial-size smoke rings. A handful of early tests were total failures. But Ingels closed his talk with a short clip of the most recent trial, conducted in August. It shows a massive chimney. Then, there’s a blast like a cannon and a cloud of fog. At first it seems like a failure. Then, you hear someone cheering as you see a thick ring of smoke sail upwards into a clear blue Copenhagen sky.
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