Architects From Denmark

"In the last 100 years we six times doubled our consumption [0.7 trillion m3 in 1900, to 4 trillion m3 in 2018] of water. ...Most of it goes to agriculture, and of the agriculture, most goes into meat."

"[W]e are getting increasingly dry zones and... it's expensive, energy-wise, to desalinate. ...[I]f we would have to desalinate the increase of water consumption to reach 10 billion people, it would be 20% of our current electricity supply."

"Every hour we produce a pile of 38 meters. This is and this is the cone of plastic bottles, every day, and every month we can bury the tallest tower on planet earth in a cone of plastic bottles... [W]hen you look at the flow of plastic, the vast majority is discarded after a single use. A good part of it is still in use in different components. The stuff that gets recycled, quickly gets discarded again, and then a small fraction becomes put to... more constant use or incinerated for the energy value. If you look at the sources of energy, the vast majority of mismanaged plastic is in Asia Pacific. The global river plastic input to the oceans, massively Asia... and massively packaging. So these are the sort of mismanaged pollution hub spots, and these are the outlets into the global oceans creating this kind of distribution because of the currents of plastics, where the biggest... is the ."

"[W]hat we're trying to do... is try to apply the kind of tangible, practical thinking. We almost took the... way we would normally approach an architectural project and a master plan. So this is the kind of index... for the master plan of the planet, and going through it with this kind of pragmatic utopian approach, hoping that we can develop insights, and ideally a master plan for the planet that could be... handed... to corporations and governments with a much more tangible and... promising concrete plan of action than the reports or sort of political agendas that... exist today."

"This idea of a power plant so clean that we can turn it into a mountain meadow is part of an idea that we call hedonistic sustainability... that clean technology is not only better for the environment, it also is much more enjoyable for the poeple living there... [W]e discovered this idea more than two decades ago when we completed our first project. ...We designed the , extending the life of the city into the water around it... [W]e also designed the harbour bath in ... [T]here was something special happening... that a clean port is not only nice for the fish, it's also amazing for the citizens... they don't have to drive... for hours to get to the beach... They can... jump into the port in the middle of the city."

"A decade after, we opened the Danish Pavilion in Shanghai. The subject for the World Expo was "Better Cities, Better Life," and we thought of the pavilion as a condensation of all the things that make Danish cities more sustainable and... more enjoyable. ...We recreated the harbour bath ...and we were looking for common denominators between Denmark and China ...[W]e found that in the Chinese public school curriculum they have three fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, one being... , the national symbol of Denmark, so we proposed to move the mermaid [statue] to China. I had to go to Parliament to argue the case, and... we got her."

"One... way to explain... the power of architecture... is to explain the Danish word for design, which is "Formgivning," which... means "form giving," because to design something is to... give form to that which has not yet been given form... [i.e.,] to give form to the future. ...We're giving form to the world which we would like to find ourselves living in ...Design becomes much more important than style or aesthetics and fashion."

"This is one of my favorite photos. It's all the richest people in Denmark and me. It's... the family that makes . It says something about a country when the richest... make Lego, but they asked us to imagine the home of the Lego brick, an architecture where you could unfold the potential of Lego. ...This is the ...building. We tried to ...imagine an architecture ...as inviting... engaging and inclusive as Lego ...itself. ...Lego is a tool, not a toy ...that empowers the child to create his or her own world and ...inhabit that world through play, and to invite her friends in... cocreating and cohabiting that world. ...[T]hat, at its best is exactly what architecture should be."

"As human beings we have the power to imagine our world, to create... and cocreate... and to cohabit it."

"This is , the capitol of Albania... [W]e were invited to imagine their National Theatre. ...It is pinched to perform a gateway between the Plaza... and... City Hall on the other side, and that... wrinkled opening creates a covered plaza that is the entrance into the theatre. ...[A] very simple ...public gesture that becomes an invitation... shading from the Mediterranean sun, made out of... red upcycled concrete. ...The national color of Albania is red. We found this beautiful red stone ...locally sourced. ...The main hall is faceted out of hot-rolled steel ...a mixture of perforated and reflective surfaces creates the perfectly calibrated acoustics, almost like an of black steel. ...The second auditorium can ...open its backstage out to the roof, and the ...roof becomes a ...starlit, open-air performance space. ...[W]e've tried to squeeze as much creative energy and performance possibility into the smallest possible volume. It's currently under construction. ...[I]t's going to be a building that looks different because it performs differently."

"This is an art museum we designed in Norway, in a sculpture park... on two sides of a river, and we suggested that the museum could be the bridge... from one side... to the other. ...As the building crosses the river ...it zips closed the daylight. ...[I]t's made out of standard extruded aluminum profiles ...to make warehouses... A lot of identical elements put together in a carefully orchestrated way. Inside it is... white painted 2x4 timber... and again, by gently shifting the orientation... by leaving half of them open, we have all of the... ventilation for state of the art... climate control, all the lighting... It's... creating something extraordinary out of a lot of ordinary. ...[A] museum that is also a bridge that is also a sculpture, in a sculpture park."

"We designed and built MÉCA, la Maison de l'économie créative de Aquitaine. It's a... regional art foundation, and a library and...performance center... on the waterfront of in ... next to the first bridge designed and built by . ...As you walk along the Garonne river the museum lifts you up, allow you to pass through and continue your journey... The theater and the library become the pillars that carry the art museum. ...It creates this urban room ...shaded from the Bordeaux sun... gently lifts the public up through the building and out. It creates... effortless seating in the shade of the building overlooking the river. ...[J]ust by opening the facade a tiny bit ...all the programs that need daylight are visible from the outside. ...All the finishes ...almost like Le Corbusien ...raw and simple material. ...[Y]ou enter ...a little storytelling pit ...It's really like a warehouse for the arts. ...As you ascend up, the theater with the skylit stage, so for rehearsals they have daylight, and finally the art space on the roof and the beautiful view of the city. ...[A]lmost like an extension of the industrial neighborhood behind, bringing the city and its life all the way down to waterfront."

"[A] decade ago I got invited to make a proposal for a building on the waterfront of , and we took that as an opportunity to move to New York, and open our studio there. ...[W]e thought we should make a courtyard building. All buildings in are courtyards... a little oasis in the middle of the city. It's communal, so it's shared by... all 700 apartments... The court-scraper... the height of a skyscraper to the northeast and... the height of a handrail in the southwest. So everybody who lives around the courtyard has views of the sun setting over the Hudson river... almost like bringing the communal qualities of a Copenhagen courtyard with the... verticality and density of an American skyscraper."

"In Amsterdam we... opened the Slicehouse. ...We put a floating solar farm in the water... There's a public promenade where people can overlook... Amsterdam. It's... completely framed by . ...[W]e lift up the courtyard so you can sail into the city block. The local kids can swim. You can dock a boat. It becomes... a... fusion between the public realm, the port, and the private. The facade is made out of maritime aluminum... so the facade continues into the water. ...[T]o let in sunlight some of the apartments become houses with gardens, and you can walk... up to the public promenade... [T]he building... becomes an extension of the city landscape of Amsterdam. It's... piled on energy piles extracting heat and cold from the port... to heat and cool the building."

"This is only a fragment of the plan for the planet that we've done as an in-house research project... to answer some of our own questions... [W]e don't have any jurisdiction over Earth, so no one asked us to do this. So what's the point? ...[D]oing the plan for the planet has given us an insight and a clarity... and we started aligning the projects... with the principles of the plan... [P]roject by project we're beginning to give form to a future that is more aligned with the principles..."

"In Sevilla, the hottest city in Spain, we are building the for the . It's half a public square and half the... Commission. It's covered by this... canopy of photovoltaic panels that creates a shaded square, which means that we can make the facade in one of the sunniest places in the world entirely out of glass, because it's... shaded... It's a naturally ventilated square... The building... produces twice as much energy as it consumes... [T]he photovoltaics are funded and maintained by the local energy company... It becomes... an energy machine or a decentralized power plant..."

"For Google we created this... canopy of ... next to the , and the landscape is... root zone gardens, so the roof canopy collects... rainwater, then all the gray and black wastewater is... filtered through the landscape and... let clean into the bay. The only material is photovoltaic tiles... a Swiss product that... has a textured surface... making power out of light... [T]he structure is a grid shell that has a catenary curve, because the natural sagging is the most materially sufficient way to make a long span, so minimizing... how incredibly thin the roof structure is... [T]he smiles are proportioned to let in... the perfect amount of daylight..."

"[A]ll of these projects are examples of how... the future can not only be more sustainable, but... more fun to work in and more beautiful to live in."

"[T]he idea of the Vltava Philharmonic is to... celebrate the journey of the Vltava river, the Vltava symphony, the journey from the stream, the source in the mountains... through the ... through dams, through cities, and eventually to [Prague]... Imagine an architecture that... is... a journey from the river to the roof... as public... engaging and inviting... To bring the... the life of the city center down to the river. Create a landmark... for the neighborhood, for the city. To resolve this... of trams... trains... highways... metro stops... pedestrians and cars, in a three dimensional city, to create a literal and accessible connection to the river, to provide... an active social environment for the fine performing arts... also for the popular culture... to create this... perfectly tuned instrument for the performance and delivery of symphonic music. ...[F]rom this incredibly rational, orthoganal diagram, use the public realm, the canopies, the es and the s to create a public destination, and similarly in plan, to blur the distinction between inside and outside by pulling out the canopies to connect with the environment to create a zone that is neither indoor nor outdoor, that is protected from the rain and shaded from the sun... [T]his kind of very basic principle created this building that... starts at the edge of the water and winds itself up to the main level of the city and the bridge, and from here creates a series of destinations and lookouts... to the top of the city. ...[A] music student can walk all the way up to class on the outside of the building. ...[T]he highway... has... been overflown, so instead of having cars dominating the waterfront... it becomes public life. ...[Y]ou don't really know where the building ends or the city begins, and you have... generous spaces where public life is invited to enter and linger. ...From the city side you can see into... green rooms, rehearsal rooms and... a culture hub with musical studios. ...[A]t night the... transparency... illuminates the wooden... [ceilings] made out of locally sourced timber. Towards the water... pulling out the balconies and... terraces you get these... lookouts... almost at the... water's edge. [A]... pavement made out of locally sourced stone and the... integration of greenery... blurs the distinction between what is park, what is plaza, what is building... [S]tepping of stones create a series of... hangout spaces or... informal performance spaces. ...[W]hat could... sometimes be construed as a... , highbrow cultural institution becomes a very... welcoming and accessible landscape of... familiar local materials, and an abundance of places with views... shade... sun and shelter. ...[O]n the plaza level between the city and the traffic of the main street... a very permeable zone that also becomes an informal hangout space, so before performances or after, a place to linger... [W]hen the [day]light drops and the... [interior lighting] energy arises the building... comes alive when it starts... inviting guests for the performances. ...[E]ven though all of the... sloping roofs are... gentle in their ascent, at certain angles it... becomes this... incredibly dramatic overlapping of forms. ...Arriving across the bridge you... have the choice to connect... to the plaza... passing through the trees of the plaza that provide shade... having a major arrival plaza in front of the . The foyer wraps the city and the riverfront... [A] building without a... back side."

"[A]t its best, architecture is like the art of portraiture. In the sense that... Is the Mona Lisa an expression of da Vinci as an artist or is it an expression of Mona Lisa, the woman that it portrays? And... the answer is both. ...[A] great portrait can capture not only the likeness, but also the character, the soul, the potential of the subject, and... what we try to do... is to create... an architectural portrait of how we see Prague. In that sense it... has that kind of inherent Pragueness, from the river to the roof, the kind of 21st century equivalent of the ... You can dream... In the architectural design process, a lot of people... worship the idea of the genius sketch on a napkin, and... that the whole project is conceived in a single eureka moment. ...A lot of the ideas that will be striking ...in 2032 have not been formulated yet. ...A lot of the ideas that haven't even been framed yet, that's what makes it very exciting ... to not just create the vision, but acutually go through with it ...[S]o many ideas... experiences... contradictions and surprises actually occur when the purity of the initial vision starts encountering the nitty gritty reality of real life. ...Some of the most striking experiences are yet to be invented in the next couple of months and years."

"Wealthy real estate developers who might otherwise be coerced into adopting more stringent waste reduction techniques or buying more ecologically resilient building materials are offered a more appealing option by firms like BIG who provide an appearance of greenness that does not conflict with the corporate ethos. ...The phrase ... always seems to point to the... impossibility of making something inherently bad for the environment appear ‘green’ and responsible. The material formation of the architectural process has to be reckoned with, and so far firms like BIG have not been leading the way. ...The starchitect class has been fatally captured by the interests of high powered finance and industry that got humanity embroiled in the crisis of climate change in the first place. They are... our opponents in the struggle for a more just and resilient future."

"By making this chair five times as expensive, three times heavier, half as comfortable, and only a fraction as beautiful, an architect can make a good name for himself."