Bjarke Ingels

Founder, Partner BIG

Bjarke Ingels is the founding partner of BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group. He studied at Technical University of Barcelona’s School of Architecture and graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen in 1999. After working for OMA in Rotterdam, Bjarke returned to Copenhagen where he co-founded PLOT Architects in 2001. In 2005, Bjarke founded BIG, which has grown to 130 people with offices in Copenhagen and New York City. BIG’s completed projects include the 8 House, the Danish Pavilion in Shanghai’s World Expo and The Mountain. Current projects include: West 57th, a 650-unit residential building in Manhattan; the Danish Maritime Museum; the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah; and The Rose Rock International Financial Center, a 10 million sf development in Tianjin that includes a 1929-foot-tall tower. Alongside his architectural practice, Bjarke has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.

Through a series of award-winning design projects, Bjarke and BIG have developed a reputation for designing buildings that are as programmatically and technically innovative as they are cost and resource conscious. Like a form of programmatic alchemy, Bjarke and BIG create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working and shopping to realize symbiotic synergies in the form of new, reproducible urban typologies. Additionally Bjarke advocates the idea of “hedonistic sustainability,” which presents sustainability as a design challenge rather than a moral dilemma.

Bjarke and BIG have received numerous awards and honors, including the Danish Crown Prince’s Culture Prize in 2011, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. In 2010, Fast Company declared him one of the 100 most innovative people in business, and in 2011 named BIG one of the 10 most innovative companies in architecture. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal awarded Bjarke the Architectural Innovator of the Year Award. In 2012, the American Institute of Architects granted the 8 House its National Honor Award, calling it “a complex and exemplary project of a new typology.”

Jamie Maslyn Larson, RLA, ASLA

Principal, Partner West 8 New York

Jamie Maslyn Larson is a Partner in West 8’s New York office and is Principal of West 8’s American projects. Larson has committed her career to the implementation of complex public space projects and works through all phases and facets of design, public outreach, permitting, and construction administration. She approaches her work with a passion for design and has the tenacity required to realize multi-phase projects with multiple jurisdictions and stakeholders. Her work has varied in scale- from small urban plazas to 1000-acre public gardens. This work has been located across the USA, giving her vast experience leading high profile design projects with varied jurisdictional and regulatory issues that are particular to each project and city.

At West 8’s New York office, Larson directs all North American projects in close coordination with Adriaan Geuze as Design Director for the projects. As Principal for Governors Island Park and Public Space project in New York City, which West 8 won in a 2007 international competition, Larson leads the team to implement the 87-acre park. Phase 1 of the project includes 30 acres of new public spaces that will open in Fall 2013. Larson also led the work on the 2.5 acre Miami Beach Soundscape Park in the cultural and civic heart of downtown Miami Beach, Florida which serves as an outdoor performance space for the New World Symphony as well as a distinctive park for residents and visitors. Larson also directs the work on the Master Plan project for Longwood Gardens in southeastern Pennsylvania- a 1,000 acre botanic garden founded by Pierre du Pont with a rich legacy and natural beauty.

Larson has taught and presented at national conferences and universities and has served on the board of directors for local chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects. She has also been published in Landscape Journal. Larson has a Masters of Landscape Architecture from Utah State University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Arizona.