The DAAily platforms Designboom, Architonic, and ArchDaily held a unique storytelling space to feature curated talks about design and architecture during the Milan Design Week 2022. Dubbed the DAAily Bar, the set served as a new meeting point inviting renowned designers and exhibiting immersive art installations.
As part of the DAAily Bar Live Talks, ArchDaily's Founder and Editor-in-Chief David Basulto had the opportunity to talk with Jakob Lange, architect and partner at BIG, about the BIG Ideas project, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group’s latest endeavors, and the future of the company.
Bjarke Ingels Group is one of the most successful architecture practices of this time, with more than 700 projects worldwide aligned with a strong agenda about sustainability. Based on research, prototyping, and production workflow, the team is conscious of the complexity of meeting expectations at all scales, developing an innovative and transversal approach to design, or what they call "BIG Ideas."
BIG Ideas is an in-house think tank to address current needs and tackles future challenges through integrative collaboration. From door handles and floating houses to larger projects like intercontinental transportation, Jakob Lange talks about innovation, highlighting architects' and designers' ability to picture and shape a world full of possibilities. An example of this is ski-slope-sporting in Copenhagen, the tallest artificial climbing wall in the world, which brought the mountain sport to one of the lowest-lying ground cities in Europe.
Lange, who has been working with Ingels since 2003 and is head of the product design department, delves into some Big Ideas, namely the proposal for floating cities in collaboration with the United Nations. “Oceanix City” would be the world’s first resilient and sustainable floating community, designed to accommodate 10,000 people in response to the prediction that by 2050, 90% of the world’s largest cities will be exposed to rising seas, resulting in mass displacement, and the destruction of homes and infrastructure. Similarly, Lange presented the Urban Rigger, a building typology optimized for harbor cities that introduces a student housing solution facing increasing demand.
Regarding the future, the architect presented the idea of a transportation system connecting city centers to city centers at high-speed run on electricity. In collaboration with Hyperloop One, the joint concept for autonomous transportation in the European Union also includes plans for the world’s first Hyperloop One Portals and Hyperloop One Pods that will take passengers from downtown Helsinki to downtown Stockholm in less than half of hour.
Stressing integral and transversal collaboration, Jakob Lange concluded the talk with the introduction of additive construction techniques for future projects, including the recently announce of constructing 100 3D-printed homes with the Pioneer in large-scale 3D printing, ICON. The same technology would open the possibility of sending robots to remote places to provide shelters and housing, including to outer space. In partnership with SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) and ICON, BIG is working on a space-in-situ construction system that could support future NASA's exploration of the Moon.
Hosted by the Swiss Corner at Piazza Cavour / Via Palestro 2, the DAAily bar featured a curated talk series hosted by DAAily platforms' three Editors-in-Chief to inspire and entertain. Speakers included some of the biggest names in design, art, and architecture, such as Stefano Boeri, from Stefano Boeri Architetti, Carlo Ratti, director of MIT's Senseable Lab and founder of innovation studio Carlo Ratti Associati, and Patricia Urquiola, to name a few.
Check this year's Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile coverage on the tags: milan design week 2022 and salone del mobile 2022.
