anyway: i am no architect, but this architecture studio that I’ve been slaving away at has really gotten me hooked. even addicted one could say. a graphic designer can become an architect, right? is that allowed? anyway, i’ve been doing a lot of reading in my spare time and came across and interview with one of my favorite design blogs designboom and bjarke ingels of BIG architects in denmark.

national gallery of greenland by BIG

db: describe you style, like a good friend of yours would describe it -

bi: well, very simply, architecture is misconceived as this sort of elitist activity –
‘designed by architects, for architects’.
architecture is fundamentally this sort of continuous collective effort of trying to make
our cities and buildings fit with the way we want to live our lives.
and that is essentially what we do.
whenever we get invited to do a project we try to, to listen and observe what’s happening.
how has life evolved and how can we create the frame work to allow this.
to allow the maximum possibilities for unfolding for human life.
in a sense we are facilitators or – I like this idea that the architect is a mid-wife
that we help society continually to give birth to its self -.

I think, we have a very inclusive approach to design and architecture, in the fact that
we try to include specific inputs, specific knowledge, from outside the field of architecture.
so, it’s not this traditional, sort of ‘the clique’ of a ‘style snob’ who ‘knows better’,
but rather a question of trying to understand what are the concerns and demands surrounding
a certain project and then trying to manifest this information into a physical form.

… if it should be in simpler terms,
I think, architecture should be about the realizing of our dreams.
quite often architecture is only about trying to make things look good, or not look bad,
but for instance with the project we are doing in copenhagen right now were we are
turning a power-plant that makes energy and electricity out of trash.
we are also turning it into a man-made ski slope.
it suddenly transforms snowy but flat copenhagen into a much more exciting place to live.
’cause even though we don’t have mountains, in five years we will be able to ski.
this is the power of architecture — you can really transform the identity and activity of a place
and essentially turn dreams into reality.

in a way as an architect what you do is you try to take your dreams and turn them into reality.
and once they become reality they become just as real as the everyday stuff.
what is completely wild imagination, somehow petrifies into being. this is how things are.
and this sort of, reality transforming power, is pretty fascinating.

read more of the interview here