Hospitality Design - November 2017 - 120

Waste-to-energy plant Amager Resource Center in Copenhagen doubles as
an extreme sport destination with a ski slope and public park on the roof

unifying thread throughout many of BIG's projects. "Instead of
sustainability being a compromise, what if we simply made [being]
sustainable better?" he asks. "It's the idea that it's not only great for
the birds, but it's also amazing for the citizens. At the end of the day,
the architecture of the building is not the goal, it's the means-if a
building doesn't create a framework for the life you want to live, then
it fails in what it's there for." He points to an all-year community the
firm is creating inside a cenote in Tulum, Mexico and the recently
finished "courtscraper" residential building Via 57 West on the
waterfront of Manhattan (BIG's inaugural project in the city). The
warped pyramid shape-a hybrid of a European perimeter block and
a New York highrise-features a massive courtyard cut out of the
center of the building, an oasis for residents. "The shape is a result
of the environment we wanted to create, not the other way around,"
he says. "We're not imposing the form, we are discovering the form.
Sometimes we are surprised by the design we're discovering because,
when we started out, we just knew what we wanted the building to
be able to do, not what it should look like."
That holds true for the Eleventh mixed-use project, which will
house residential, retail, a small museum, and a Six Senses hotel on
a full city block in West Chelsea along the High Line in New York.
Two buildings, a west tower reaching 34 stories, and an east one with
24, seem to dance as they pull away from each other at the base-
framing a small garden area-and then twist at the top, becoming
wider to maximize river and city views. With a façade inspired by the
historic warehouses of the district, the buildings "are recognizable,
but at the same time, something mysterious is happening, with these
windows flying from one side to the next," he says. "You almost don't
notice what is going on until you start studying it."
That's only the tip of the iceberg. "I feel like we haven't even
started," he says, adding that a secret to his success is surrounding

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November 2017 hospitalitydesign.com

The Big U is a protective system around Manhattan, comprising
10 continuous miles of low-lying geography, aimed at
safeguarding the city from natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy

himself with a talented team. "It doesn't have to be me who comes up
with the greatest idea, but it's my responsibility to be the guardian
of the greatest ideas, no matter where they come from." Take two
of BIG's more creative recent openings in Denmark. There's Lego
House, an experiential center for the brand that looks like a colorful
"cloud of interconnected [Lego] bricks," he says, and the Tirpitz, a
historic German WWII bunker-turned-museum, where walls were
cut into the dunes. But he might be most excited about one of BIG's
more unusual projects: a new yin-and-yang shaped habitat for the
pandas at the Copenhagen Zoo. "The name Bjarke means 'little bear,'
so maybe it was somehow in the cards," he says.
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