Bjarke Ingels is one of the world’s most exciting architects. His approach to design is to begin with the question, ‘What is the biggest problem – what is the greatest potential?’ He finds the answer through careful analysis of everything from local cultures and climates and ever-changing patterns of contemporary everyday life, to the ebbs and flows of the global economy. The result is an information-driven architecture, innovative in both programme and technology, which stands as the material counterpart to the rapidly evolving realities of the twenty-first-century digital economy and digital communication networks.

Ingels founded Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in Copenhagen in 2005. The practice opened an office in New York in 2010 and in 2014 established BIG Ideas, a technology-driven special projects unit that explores new ideas in both the digital and material realms. BIG is currently working on major projects all over the world, such as the the Amager Bakke Waste-to-Energy Plant in Copenhagen, which includes its own ski-slope; the new headquarters for Google in California (with Thomas Heatherwick); West 57 in New York, and the redevelopment of London’s Battersea Power Station. Notable built works include Copenhagen’s Mountain Dwellings (2008), the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and the Danish Maritime Museum in Helsingør (2013).