In Conversation with Bjarke Ingels and Kai-Uwe Bergmann, BIG

17 years ago, danish architect Bjarke Ingels founded his office in Copenhagen. Today, the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has additional studios in Ney York, London, Barcelona and Shenzhen. BIG completed small harbor baths and huge high-rise residential blocks in New York City. The architects like to communicate their ideas with symbols in bright colours, which makes visionary plans all the more impressive. The current projects include not only a habitat for Mars, which BIG is developing together with Nasa and Icon, but also the Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation system that moves people in a vacuum tube at the speed of sound. Will these utopias soon become reality? We asked Bjarke Ingels, BIG founder and creative director, and Kai-Uwe Bergmann, BIG partner and Bjarke's long-time friend, about their optimism in these pandemic times and their plans to create a habitat on the Moon. They joined our interview from Copenhagen and New York.

You can find the full interview in Detail 1/2.2022 or in our databank Detail Inspiration.

Bjarke Ingels founded BIG, the Bjarke Ingels Group, in 2005 in Copenhagen. He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2016. He also teaches at prestigious universities and gives lectures worldwide.

Kai-Uwe Bergmann is a partner at BIG and based in New York, where he leads business development and communications. He is involved in the Man­hattan Flood Control Project, teaches at ­universities, and gives lectures worldwide.