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July 12th


Today we had the once in a lifetime opportunity to come to the Copenhagen offices of BIG (Bjorke Ingels Group). While circumstances only allowed us to spend a bit of time listening to a presentation and asking questions, it was extremely awesome to learn about what is considered to be one of the best if not, the best architectural firm in the world from the inside.

One of the craziest things about this firm is they got to the point they're at in about the past 15 years. In fact, a majority of their projects haven't been finished or developed yet. While talking to Them today it was evident that they didn't just get to the top through beautiful designs, amazing renderings, and breathtaking models. BIG constantly pushes the limit and goes through the extra mile when designing. They do things like try to actually make their buildings as sustainable as possible rather than just go for checkmarks off of the LEED checklist. Whether that bee green roofs that function as skiing and hiking hills (Copenhill) or apartments that small ecosystems can grow on (King Toronto) they are always breaking barriers.

(Copenhill)

(King Toronto)

Having the opportunity to go to their office was extremely inspiring as an aspiring Landscape architect. I personally think that the future of the LA field is designing green and public spaces on structure (on buildings). In today's world, it makes too much sense. Building greenspace on buildings can reduce heat, stormwater runoff, allow people to get to greenspace easier, etc; It's extremely exciting to see people such as BIG continue to test the limits of what you can do on top of buildings. They try and design buildings with as many purposes as possible, and green and public spaces are almost never left out of that equation. 

After the meeting, I decided to go to the Danish Architecture Center which was hosting an exhibit of BIG's best works. This was just as if not more inspiring than the talk because there was so much more going on. Below I'll share some pictures of models and renderings. 












As I write about my experience today it's hard not to think of today as one of the most inspiring of my whole life. I don't want to sound cliché but it made me realize that it's ok to dream in the design world. It inspired me to continue down the path I'm going but work even harder at it. The future is integrating many uses into architecture including greenspace, and the future is now. 

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