SpeakerArchitect Bjarke Ingels started BIG, Bjarke Ingels Group, in 2006 in Denmark after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam.
Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Ingels has created an international reputation as a member of a new generation of architects that combine shrewd analysis, playful experimentation, social responsibility and humour.
In 2004, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for the Stavanger Concert House, and the following year he received the Forum AID Award for the VM Houses. Since its completion, The Mountain has received numerous awards including the World Architecture Festival Housing Award, Forum Aid Award and the MIPIM Residential Development Award.
Recently, Ingels was rated as one of the 100 most creative people in business by New York-based Fast Company magazine, as well as being named Wall Street Journal’s Architectural Innovator of 2011.
Alongside his architectural practice, Ingels has been active as a visiting professor at Rice University’s School of Architecture and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Ingels was also recently a visiting professor at Harvard University where he taught a joint studio with the Business School and the Graduate School of Design.
Ingels is also a co-founder of the KiBiSi design group, together with Jens Martin Skibsted and Lars Larsen. Working across disciplines, KiBiSi is particularly interested in urban mobility, architectural illumination and personal electronics. Creating everything from bicycles to furniture, household objects and aircraft, KiBiSi is one of the most influential Scandinavian design groups working today.
In 2012 Ingels will be a visiting professor at the Yale University School of Architecture.