Bjarke Ingles
EPISODE 51
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels born 2 October 1974 is often cited as one of the most inspirational architects of our time. At an age when many architects are just beginning to establish themselves in professional practice, Ingels has already won numerous competitions and achieved a level of critical acclaim that is rare for new names in the industry.
He is the founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), widely known for buildings that defy convention while incorporating sustainable development principles and bold sociological concepts.
SHOW CLIPS
A BLOCK
INTRO
Intro - Tweaking the Status Quo
HOW
Development into Architecture - DEEP DIVE
Good Design is Careful, Bad Design is Careless
Fiction to Fact
BUILDINGS
WeWork
B BLOCK
ADVICE
Do what you want
Advice to Young
THE FUTURE
What Kind of World Do We Want To Live In
Bjarke Engels -BIg
episode 51
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 51. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man in springtime. Brooklyn mr. Chad Owen. Hello Chad. Hey Mike. It's finally, spring, spring has sprung high, you know, the sun is out and there's not a cloud in the sky. I'm, I'm finally on happy that, uh, that spring arrived. And so am I because you and I are going to be catching up in a couple of weeks time, and it's very nice to open my weather app and see that it's not some. Arctic conditions have me scrambling for beanies and gloves. It's really nice to see that we're going to have a, a gentler weather condition this time round. Yeah, you can leave. You're a quote unquote winter coats, which is just like a light jacket, uh, at, at home in Sydney. Absolutely. And look, I tell you what we have had a blast on this architect series. And so many of these architects have done amazing things in your hometown of New York. And I think it's safe to say our fourth and final architect is living up to that promise as well. Who do we have store Chad Owen? Yeah. So our fourth architect in the architecture series here, wrapping it all up is someone from the other side of the pond from a little Danish town called Copenhagen. And we're going to be profiling, Bjarke, Ingels. Of the Bjarke Ingels group. Now we were really fond of BR because he's done some, uh, weird, wonderful, challenging, curious, stunning buildings. But my, my pitch for you here, Chad, is, you know, we have had some Titans of architecture on this series, Zaha. Uh, on our 50th anniversary show and obviously, you know, Lloyd Wright, Norman foster, Frank Geary, but BRK he this guy, I mean, he is, I would pin him as the Elon Musk. Of architecture. He's quite the challenge of brand, isn't he? Yeah. And that's why his name kind of leapt to mind. As soon as we were talking about doing a series on architects and while you weren't very familiar with him, I think just. From a trip that Nicole and I had taken my, my wife and I had taken to Copenhagen a couple of years ago, she's an architect and made sure that we stopped by some of the buildings that big had built around Copenhagen. And I was just really struck by them. And then when I kind of found out know, did some research on him and kind of. Found his Elon like personality. I thought he'd be okay. A perfect fit for this show because he's a little out there. He's a little bit of a pitch and hype man, but, uh, what they have built thus far or some really interesting specimens that are excited to talk with you and learn from BR. Uh, on today's show. Yeah, I have to thank you, Chad. Um, I really had no idea idea who I was was prior to you suggesting him and, you know, digging into it. There's two buildings that just leap out that are signature, Bjarke, angles, and very disruptive. And so for those of you who are not driving and, uh, on your commute, but perhaps. On the train or the tram have a little bit of a Google around for these two buildings. The first one is Copen Hill, you know, so think about Copenhagen Copen Hill and they. It was a waste management plant that we're going to talk about further in this show, but they've converted it into an hour. We're in the middle of Copenhagen. This building is ridiculous. It's so much fun. I mean, I just love this coping Hill. Don't you? Yeah, well, he, Varick was kind of joking that there's lots of snow in Denmark and in Copenhagen, but it's all flat. There's no mountains.
And so they used this giant, this giant industrial building and turned it into a ski slope. The other building that, that you. Are going to point us to Mike, is I actually one of my favorites? And if you Google it, be sure you find some of that aerial shots of the Lego house, which is a new Lego museum in Denmark, the home country of Lego and. It's just like a giant set of Lego bricks. Um, but there's no other way to describe it. We got to give just a little bit of the magic here. Um, the, this is a building you can walk into. But Chad, what's, it made out of completely, if it's the Lego house, they made it out of Legos. Of course. How cool is that? Yeah. And it's really colorful in the spaces inside. I think do a really fantastic job of incorporating the playfulness of the product right into the building, which I think is really fascinating. Right. And, and if you looking to be archangels New York, you're going to see that he's got lots of, uh, stunning plans all related to United nations and all sorts of other things. And this guy he's, he's our age, you know, he's he's yeah. Early forties. And he is absolutely red hot at the moment, whether you're in Europe or the U S uh, he is, uh, Architect does your, so we've got a lot to learn from him in the show. So if you're listening to the show, be sure to go and check out all the show notes on shots.io. They have all the links and all the goodies there. You can pick up. You know, all our archive shows as well, but, uh, Chad, we got so much to cover. He's got some great advice and I think that's not only for architects, but for any entrepreneur or innovator, a little peek into some of the buildings he did and how he thought about them, but he's got some pretty smart thinking. And again, this is where he's a lot like Elon Musk. What we really wanted to share is how he. How he thinks how he's built this massive architectural firm called big, uh, where they win projects all over the world. So he's very much a great artist and a great entrepreneur. So we've got lots and lots and lots. To share with each other without audience. And I'm super pumped. I think there's a lot to learn from, from blocking or, yeah. And so to start the show, we've got a great clip from Garrick, really just introducing us to a few of his buildings and, and also talking a bit, uh, we're getting again into his mindsets and how he thinks, um, where he, he. For him, it's all about tweaking the status quo. So let's hear from BR when I start studying architecture and told people what I did the most frequently asked question was always, can you tell me why all new buildings are so boring? People had the idea that in the past buildings came with ornaments and decoration, moats drawbridges spires and dock oils. Today they'd been reduced to containers of space, boring and boxy somehow. So many of our choices today tend to settle with reaffirming the status quo. By replicating what's already there rather than inventing what could happen next. I decided I wanted to change that in the movie inception, the architects find that they can finally realize their wildest dreams because they're in fact, designing inside a dream. The Arctic hero cob explains how he and his wife wanted to live in a house with a garden, but prefer to live in a high rise in real life, you would have to choose. He says, But in a dream, we could get it as we wanted it. We've made a building in Copenhagen called the mountain, combining a parking structure and an apartment building by turning the parking into a manmade mountain of costs. We can turn the stack of homes into a cascade of houses with gardens, penthouse, views, and big lawns cops, dream home made in real life. We call this idea of bigamy. That you can take multiple desirable elements that might not fit together, or even seem mutually exclusive like the garden home in the Highrise and merge them together into a new, stronger, you don't have to remain faithful to a single idea. You can literally marry multiple ideas into promiscuous hybrids. The beauty is that architecture not only allows you to dream stuff up.
It also allows you to alter the facts. You can turn pure fiction into heart facts. We went on to imagine little tweaks of the status quo that now form everyday reality in Copenhagen and beyond the eight houses, a neighborhood of townhouses where you can walk and bicycle from the street to the penthouse, turning a city block into a Mediterranean mountain town of paths and squares. The Harbor bath brings the beach into the heart of the city, realizing the Parisian slogan of may 68, pseudo Pavela plash. The cold scraper combines the urban Oasis of the courtyard with extreme density of a skyscraper into a new Walt hybrid of the two. Wow. He is like, he's pretty polished. I mean, my first reaction Chad is compare him. To the sort of natural, rough edged, Frank Geary, who's just bad, just doing a thing and throwing paper in the waste paper basket. And then I look at it, I see a shape, you know, just very. Nature human intentional BRK is so polished. And he's so about the clash of worlds, the clash of ideas, where the real inspiration, the dash of celebrity in there too, you know, cause movie references this and the nice Parisian twist and we call these bigamy. Everything is trademarked, but I mean, jesting aside what he is clearly pointing out for us right here. Is he he's, he's taking ideas because I live in an apartment doesn't mean I can't have a garden now, while that thought is simple, almost everybody in the world who lives in apartment doesn't enjoy their own garden, but yet he designs apartments with gardens and they're fabulous. And this challenging of the status quo, this contrarion, uh, approach, which takes so much courage is. Signature innovative. It's very, I mean, he is literally Elon Musk in architecture, and I think this is where we can jump off into a world of BRK angles. This for me is like a huge learning challenge. The status quo ask, why do we accept the ordinary? Why can't we have the man? Yeah. Yeah. I think what I love most about Bjarke and his personality is how much he challenges convention. Instead of, as he says, you know, keep things the way they are or just replicate something that's already been done. Let's dream about what we actually want and try to make it happen. Yeah. There's, there's something really nice about, you know, someone that's trying to move the field forward in such, in such a way like, aye. So he talks about the eight house, which is a place that I did get to visit when I was in Copenhagen and he is correct. There's. Points of the building. So imagine a figure eight, if you looked at it from above, with courtyards in, in the two middle kind of round sections and at some points, the building touches the ground. So as he says, you could kind of ride your bike up and then imagine kind of going on an infinite loop around on the top of this building, but you're changing elevation as you're going. So it's a very.
Different way of moving around an apartment complex. It's not like a high rise building with a cross, you know, floor plan and you can't help, but think that you're in some kind of new community and new space when you're in that kind of built environment. And so, yeah, I just, I love how much he challenges the status quo. Like when you're in a place like that at, at the eight house, like. You're, you're not on my block here in Brooklyn. Like you're definitely transported into a different place. And so, yeah, I think it, I think it's a really, it's a really fascinating how much he shares in common with so many of these other. Uh, brash, uh, moonshot thinkers, um, that we've profiled here. You know, the people that come to mind in addition to Elon Musk are, uh, people like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, and even someone like Yvon Chouinard, who has, they have no qualms about, uh, just about speaking their minds when it comes to, when it comes to their respective fields, quite fearless, really quite feel it's, you know, um, And, and, uh, I'm look, what I'm really excited about is he actually breaks down how he got the courage and the mental models. In fact, this next clip that we're going to listen to is him giving a little bit his journey into his craft and practice of architecture. And what I want everyone to do is really tune in to what he says here, because he's going to give us this formula. But he used to master architecture. So let's have a listen to be arc angles. I think when I look at how I developed, uh, as an architect, when I was a, when I was a student, it was, uh, you can sort of describe it as sort of professional, uh, uh, serial monogamy in a way that the, um, uh, I would always fall in love with, uh, the work of an architect. And then I would like really dive deep into that. Uh, and then, uh, almost like digging so deep into, uh, this particular obsession that, and when you dig deep enough, you also reach a certain point where, and I think this is true in architecture and in art and, uh, probably in philosophy or technology or whatever that, at some point you reach the root, um, assumptions. But once you start questioning those assumptions, the foundation of everything just collapses and then that in a way, frees you to, uh, look in another direction, it's almost like, you know, in Nietzschean terms, he talks about how you philosophize with the hammer that you were, that you hammer on, on these different concepts, uh, uh, or like values, uh, to see if there's actually any substantial, uh, um, Underpinnings behind.
And sometimes there's a, there's a value that is no longer a valid, it's a hollow concept. And it it's shadows when you, when you hit it with the hammer. And I think in a way I, I, I studied architecture with a hammer for like a few years, uh, until I reached a certain point. Okay. Uh, where I found an architect, the REM Koolhaas. Uh, who then, uh, ended up becoming my, uh, uh, my boss when I went to work for him, uh, where he had a background in journalism. And, uh, I think what was interesting for me and what was eye opening was that, um, all of them, all of their projects dealt with some kind of a situation, a political cool, or a sort of a. Uh, economical, uh, technological situation, uh, that in a way, made the architecture of reflect on society. This idea that architecture wasn't like an autonomous art form, uh, happening just within its own terms. But it was actually like in direct dialogue with things going on in society became, uh, became eyeopening to me. Hmm. I love how this clip builds on the last it's almost. We Eric explaining how he's able to challenge convention and this first principles thinking again, a direct line to something unlike Elan, who espouses, he calls it first principles thinking VR has an amazing metaphor of shattering with a hammer ideas when you, when you inquire into them enough. So I think what I'm learning from this is. VR has become so contrarian because he, he doesn't take ideas at face value. He, he hits, he hits them with the hammer. You have to see how fragile they are. Um, and it seems like what he's learned over the years is that many of these conventions, you know, kind of ring false or hollow. Absolutely. And the build I'd make on that. What this made me sort of extrapolate from this, was he deconstructs. Uh, in order to achieve mastery.
Now, let, let me explain what I mean. There, he breaks down, uh, a bit like Lego, really. He breaks like let's use architecture, he's practice. He broke it. And OS it's. It reminded me of, uh, the Toyota asked why. Five times and you'll get to the root of anything. Okay. Now, so he deconstructed it. So then he is able to reassemble in it, in the pieces in a different order. So what I'm taking from this is if we want to master anything, just keep asking why until you get to the root of it and, and, and. To the very, very first principles and then reorganize those principles in a new way. This is almost like how you be, can become a contrarion innovator in any given space. I thought that was really, really powerful because it can apply to anything kind of, yeah. Another thing that at the end of the clip, he's talking about REM Koolhaas, who, who he worked for at OMA before starting his own practice and REM. Is certainly someone that we could have also profiled on in this series. He was talking about architecture, not in isolation, but in dialogue with society. And I think what that kind of gives me a bit of a preview of is how important. And I think we'll, we'll hear this a bit later in the show, how important the, you know, the people, the citizenry and the neighborhoods and the. You know, the civic life and reality also informs what they're doing. And so there's this very interesting interplay between that w w which I guess said in, in a, in a way that more directly relates to their show, like it's very user centered the way he approaches it. Absolutely. I mean, if you were to take the digital world, He's like all about UX, usability, user centered design, human centered design. And the way that works in architecture is they think about environmental conditions, social factors, uh, the urban landscape, like the broadest sort of. Models by which humans can come into interaction with a space, you know? And isn't that crazy? I mean, this is exactly what you start to see with Eli. When he thinks about getting people around cities better, you see this so many of the innovators that we've, that we've studied. That they either directly or indirectly create better user or better human experience. Yeah. Yeah. And even incorporating simple things like surprise and delight is very important to, to what big does. And, and that, that really kind of launches into this next thought from, from Ilan, which is all about design. And, you know, he gets almost a little DDA rums on us who were featured on the show in this next clip. So let's kind of open up our minds to the world of design with the archangels. I think jackpot of, of innovation is migration of ideas. Good design is a. Design that is informed by sorry, specific information. What kind of a climate do you have? What kind of a building code do you have? What kind of a social behavior do you have and would you like to promote so that everything you do is actually done a specific purpose? Because I think good design is careful, bad design is careless.
And what we're interested in is trying to find ways of using. Contemporary engineering, uh, technology, uh, the capacity to model and simulate and calculate to, uh, respond to the local climate in ways that are not based on machinery, but based on the design of the building. So that a building in Dubai is going to look radically different from a building in a, in Copenhagen. Um, so we, we don't call it the architecture without architects. Cause that would be putting us out of a job. Would we call it engineering without engines? I think what's, what's in a bizarre way. Unique about our work is that we actually do what we say. Uh, so that each project somehow starts, we start by diving into the specific situation. What's the. What's the city, what's the landscape, what's the climate. Uh, what are the neighbors look like? What has to happen here? Like we try to look at all these practicalities and we also try to see what do people normally do? Like how would you normally we built this kind of school. So in the end you can say like our buildings end up looking different because they perform different. Yeah, for me, the key word there was good design is taking care. Carrie said otherwise could almost be empathy. Couldn't it? Yeah. That's exactly what I'm reading into that is that while Bjarke, doesn't talk about it in terms of design thinking or human centered design, I think it's absolutely ingrained into their practice at big, because they're not starting. So they're not starting from like a brief, maybe that a client gives them or a cool idea.
They have, they actually. You know, vacuum up all of the data and information in information and research about like I was saying before, you know, the place and the people, um, the environment and using that as the substrate for, for their building. So that it's kind of a natural extension. And, and instead of some like weird architectural sculpture that's, you know, completely out of place. And I think that the. What, what studying to reveal itself as his success comes from seeing his buildings in a almost anthropological context, rather than an engineering structure in a given square footage. You know what I mean? Like it really, it really feels like he's on a journey to make it integrate with a really broad set of factors, rather than like I've got my square. I'm going to put the coolest thing I can think of on that square. And job done. Yeah. Well, it's also, I mean, it sounds to me like it's a very emergent process and the ideas come from, um, the site and the people as opposed to again, then forcing ideas. So kind of take it into maybe a digital product or, you know, tech product, world Bjarke, and big seem very focused on kind of problem finding as opposed to solution creating. So instead of me just getting a brilliant idea for my Uber, for dog treats and building it and going out, we still say yes, never going to die, Mike. It's so good. It's never going to die. Um, it's a 50 episodes later and it's still, what's a party. Right. It's a perfect idea. I came up with it. It's brilliant. And so I'm going to build it and a, in the world is going to, to eat it up. Right. Well, and that's kind of my point is that, um, Instead of blocking themselves in a studio and coming up with beautiful designs. And then as you say, put them in the box, they're really letting the work emerge from. From the situation and from, from the environment, which I think is a big lesson for us, again, to, to not be so solution focused and instead, you know, be much more empathetic and allow the solutions to kind of emerge from the problems that we're discovering, um, from our customers. Now, what, what what's. Crazy good for, for this next year. Clip is if you, if you take this thinking, once you've kind of taken the care to study the people and the space and the movement in a very broad context, you identify these big problems and then you can kind of dream up. Fantastical new approaches. And, um, this is really at the heart of their process. So we've been very fortunate to find almost different clips of Bjarke talking about their process and pulling it all together for our, for our audience. This next clip talks about these big dreams that they have once they've kind of studied the context and how they can turn fiction into fact. That is the power of architecture, is that you think of something, you imagine something, uh, and then you start doing a lot of work. You do drawings, you will find technical solutions. You, you solve the budgets. And then after sort of six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years suddenly it's there. So it goes from being pure fiction, a figment of your imagination into the world. You live in. Uh, you know, like we came up with a crazy idea about skiing on the roofs of power plants. Now that's just reality in a, in Copenhagen one year from now, or like one month from now. So, um, so in that sense, architecture literally is the art of turning fiction into fact. Does that tie into the phrase? Uh, and I'm paraphrasing that you said we try to position ourselves in the small overlap between, uh, the avant garde and the reliable and predictable. Um, yeah, it's, it's like, that's actually where we have this notion we call PRA pragmatic utopia. Uh, and, uh, it, it ties into this idea of turning fiction into fact that as human beings, we have the power. To imagine and realize the world we want to live in pragmatic utopia is this idea of seeing utopia is often used as a fictional, um, you know, ideal future. That is so perfect that it's impossible, but every time you're making a building or an urban space, you have the chance to make this little corner of the world, tiny little corner of the world, more like your dream world. So in that sense, you, we actually end up building utopia. A one step or one building at a time. Wow. Could you imagine if BR can Elan like went to the same elementary school? I kind of think that they did in the way that they speak about, uh, you know, kind of the, the world of possibilities, uh, when it comes to creating, you know, you're a pragmatic utopia. Well, you certainly get this sense of how vivid. He's mental models are how big he dreams and, and it feels like that's so related to understanding the context.
And he understands the context so well from having deconstructed architecture. So this sort of his approach, we've sort of decoded in these three steps, which is decode the practice, take care to take in all the factors and then dream big and you can make fiction into fact. That to me serves not only architects a well, but any budding entrepreneur or innovator, it's sort of a GoTo playbook, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of Steve jobs in, in that same line of thinking it's, it's people that refuse to believe that there are guardrails or, or constraints. That's going to keep them from realizing. Their vision. And, you know, some people may be went about it in a, in a friendlier way than others. And some people had some big failures along the way, but. I think we could say that there hasn't been too much downside in the, in this thinking of, of turning fact and, or turning fiction into fact. But I think one thing it's driving home for me is this I'll call it just a personality trait. This belief that you can turn fiction into fact is something that. Probably true for everyone that we've profiled. And as you say, it's, you know, it's kind of a true hallmark of an innovator, a entrepreneur.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's really fun now is that you and I get a chance to, to dive into some of the work that he's done. And talk about it. So we're, I mean, we've, we've mentioned, uh, the Lego building. Chad, should we play a clip from, from BR perhaps talking about this crazy Lego building? Yeah. And again, I'd encourage everyone. And if you go to moonshots.io, you'll find links to all the images and buildings and all of the materials as with, with all of the people that we profiled in this architects series, it really benefits from, uh, from seeing these buildings that we've been discussing. But, uh, here here's a clip talking about the new Lego museum. If you're an architect and you're invited to create the home of Lego and Lego is all about, you know, building, we kind of made the document that we wouldn't design anything that wouldn't be immediately buildable LIGO. One aspect of Lego is to almost boil things down into the essential oils with like, with how few bricks. Can you actually make something recognizable? Also, we knew where it was going to be placed here in the heart of, in the hometown of Lego, like symbolically almost replace the former city hall. That is very much about Lego instead of a city hall, you would have the Lego house.
The idea was that maybe for the Lego house, just like the architecture of the Lego house is faithful to the proportions of LIGO. Every artifact, every piece of furniture. So everything you touch in the Lego house is actually made out of Lego. With Lego, you can also do this sort of pixelation or box relation. It's actually called when it's volume metric. So where you create organic shapes with many little bricks. And that's what happens with the pixel melt on the outside, where it almost becomes organic forms. So everything is like essentially a 90 degrees only. And then the entire building is clad in a. Ceramic tiles, uh, really big, beautiful ceramic tiles. They're basically based on the proportions of two by fours, the side elevation is 18 centimeters high, but the funny thing is so 18 centimeters is like a classic measurement in architecture because it is the comfortable height of a step. When you scale the two by four, up to 18 centimeters of height, it becomes exactly 60 centimeters long. It's almost the same as two feet. So all carpenters, all masons, they work. With these, like everything comes in 60 measurement. It almost feels that, you know, just like you say that in nature, uh, everything is, you know, uh, uh, with the golden ratio of the, if you were not she, uh, spirals, uh, yeah, you can say in the, in the building industry, everything somehow seems to be sad, natural with the measurements of LIGO, the DaVinci code of architecture is somehow rooted in the proportions of Lego bricks. He, he is riffing.
There he is. He has gone way past Elon Musk on that one. Yeah. Yeah. But I think for me, this is also just speaks to how passionate he is for what he does turning fiction into fact and becoming obsessed. Like I'm, I'm hearing him get totally obsessed with Lego in the same way that, you know, he taught himself architecture by obsessing. With all of the grades, he just goes all in on, on Lego and he becomes like DaVinci and he see, or what he's like Neo in the matrix, you know, he sees the matrix code, um, you know, before his eyes. It's, um, it's really, you feel his energy there. And he was so in a state of flow, he's just like riffing, like crazy. And I mean, yes, all our listeners should go and Google the Lego building and any of these buildings, they're very inspiring. We'll have a bunch of links to them in the show notes, but, um, it truly was such a simple idea because you should know that the Lego company. When they briefed him, they didn't tell him, can you build it out of Lego? That was his idea. And how crazy is it? They managed to not only do the structure, but the interiors, everything is leg an and what a simple, but yet powerful idea that I'm sure is rooted in the fact that in that very early clip, That he is decoded. He has deconstructed architecture to the point where it seems so logical to him to make it from Lego yet. Nobody else had that idea. And I think that it's this kind of thinking that makes him so appealing. To clients all around the world. And he recently, um, winded in my backyard. He did land in your backyard. So why don't you set up this next clip? Because it was absolute signature beyond, but also real recognition of his role.
Not only in architecture, but I think beyond him, The ways we work. Yeah. So I'm going to let the clip do most of, of the talking here, but a company that we've profiled on the hot or not show, it was episode 38. We work, uh, the founders were looking for someone that could think big enough to, you know, Partner with them and their huge ambitions for remaking the way we live and work. So of course, Bjarke, uh, was their guy. Um, and he's now, he's now working with the founders at, we were, as far as I can tell most all of their new ventures, but, um, here's some more from Bjarke on his new venture with we work. Some other world was not geared for this kind of a initiative. And I think what the. What we're trying to do with rework is to anyway way, say the whole world has been obsessed with platform, uh, the internet as a platform, uh, social media as a platform, but there is no platform, more fundamental, uh, then the ground under your feet, uh, to actually provide. The space for, for, for living and for working, uh, in a way that is much more tailored to the lives we, we actually live is a, is a huge endeavor. And has somehow not really been, uh, uh, been met so far. Like I think another thing we're focusing on is even a fully occupied building is only a third occupied. Let's say a workspace because people work typically from. From nine to five or whatever. And then it's like pretty much empty, except for some, some maintenance and a few people, people like stalking on a deadline. Um, so, and then of course there's the weekends. So if there was ways we could actually turn on our urban landscapes by co-habiting them in different ways, uh, even human beings have different sleep patterns because as a tribe, it was smart. If some people in the population were more nocturnal and some were more. Uh, sort of awake in the morning because then the chance of being eaten by invading tigers or, uh, sort of, uh, other tribes was, was lower if there was always someone awake.
So I think in a similar way, as a society, we have to find ways to, to get much more activity, much more life out of the structures that we, uh, that we built. What's so interesting to me about this clip is that he's the consummate storyteller. And what I love is. He's changing altitudes as he speaking. So he's going from the very specific of like, you know, this is how we work and this is where we work and this is how buildings are, and then he like zooms away out. And it was like, you know, when we were tribes, uh, 10,000 years ago, um, and he says he's kinda zooming in and out from the. From the single person up to the society to present day to the past. In some ways it's very hard to track Ken where he is, you know, kind of what altitude or what, what a timeframe. So it's just interesting to me hearing him speak about his, his partnership with we work just the kind of fluidity of his thoughts as he's moving between all those different modalities. Yeah. And your mind boggles about what he could do on the scale of we work. Right. If you think about like the, the hundreds and hundreds of offices and buildings that he can now touch inspire, um, change the way hundreds of thousands.
If not now, millions of people would work every day. I mean, this could be. Huge for rethinking how we work. And I'm sure a guy like the arc is just going to turn everything upside down for sure that you think Chad well, I mean, what I would love and I don't know if we'll get there, um, on the show, we've gotten a bit, we've gotten, you know, some clues to it, but like, I want to know how he comes up with these ideas. Like, is it he's. Just not letting anything hold him back it's because what he's talking about, it doesn't really make any sense. Right? Like all of the office buildings in Manhattan are unoccupied two thirds of the time. And just think of all the, not only just the wasted energy, but the wasted space and the wasted, you know, the latent potential of all of that space. And so he's like, well, yeah, You know, how do we get it so that all of those buildings are a hundred percent occupied and just like, yeah, why not? So it's, it's funny every time, you know, He says something I'm like, well, yeah.
Why isn't that true? Why isn't that the case now? It's just fascinating to me how, you know, I still want to know exactly how I want to like get into his brain and figure out how he comes up with some of these ideas. Because you know, once you hear them, you're like, huh? Yeah. So simple of course, but I mean, that's like anything, anyone who's great at anything, be it a sportsman or a business person. You, you always, they always make it look so easy, but. In that there's often. And I think what BR talked about was years of just with a hammer, smashing architecture apart, deconstructing it to its base level. And I think almost once you've learned how to do that. I think first of all, when you master something, you're very comfortable remixing it. Right. When you're not comfortable with something, it needs to be kind of almost rigid and you need to hold on to the rules, but when you just know it, so well, you can say, Oh, let's put B before eight. What about C? Maybe put that up the front.
And I think he's freestyling because he just knows it. So, um, But what we've had so far, Chad, we've been able to go into the mind and the practices of someone who challenges the status quo and will have enormous impact on all of our lives. Particularly with this we work deal. I'm just like, all right. How does, what advice does he have and where is his vision for the future? And we've got. A couple more clips to kind of take us to those places. I mean, this, this guy really, for me, is all about challenging the status quo. So I'm really keen to hear what advice he has for us. So where should we start on that journey, Chad? Yeah. Well, uh, before we get into the final section of the show, I did just want to mention, and this will be in, in the show notes. Bjarke was at South by Southwest here. Uh, or in Austin in 2019. And he gave a really interesting talk with some fantastic visuals, like so much that we couldn't include hardly enough of it. I don't know if any clips made it into, into this show. Actually, if you search for Bjarke Ingels, South by Southwest or a form, given Nene, uh, is. It's okay. Sorry. I just butchered my, uh, my Danish, but, uh, it's a really great talk that he gives. It goes into even more, uh, buildings that he's working on and completed. He goes into depth with the Coppin Hill, as well as his plans for cities built on the water.
And then of course in true Ilan fashion, uh, how we will build. On Mars. So yet be sure to check out moonshots.io for all of that. But in terms of advice, we've got two really good pieces. Um, and I don't think it will be surprised to hear from Garg that a piece of advice is to do what you want. Um, so here's a, here's a barracks first piece of advice for us. It's very important that I, one of the main motivators in life is that you actually do what you want. Uh, my favorite philosophies, he didn't need shit, but he was very inspired by shopping how, and my favorite, the quote is a, um, you can do what you want, but you can not want what you want. And that's so true. Like, uh, you cannot, you can actually, if you, if you want something, you can do it or not. If you have the courage or the energy to do it, you can do it or not, but you can never decide what it is you want, because either you want it. Or you don't. So I'll office, uh, here in, uh, in Copenhagen, we have maybe 25 different nationalities. One of the advantages of having multiple people collaborating from different cultures and different backgrounds is that the tendency to take things for granted diminishes says because nobody has exactly the same references by bringing people together from different backgrounds, everything gets questioned, nothing is taken for granted. Uh, and you end up. Turning more stones than you would otherwise. Uh, and you ended up having these accidental discoveries. Well, there was actually two little gifts in that, you know, as an aside, you know, he was just talking about how diversity breeds this consideration, this openness, not taking things for granted because it's not a monolithic culture, but I, but I would come back to his, the beginning of that. I love the singularity of do what you want, what you want is not a choice in terms of you either want it or you don't. But the, the choice to do it is another thing. I mean, you hear him speak and you're left with absolutely no doubt that he will do what he wants, meaning he will achieve his dreams because there's just no way.
He could have achieved what he has achieved thus far without that drive, but there's something deeper in his voice that even we hear in Zaha who was not as articulate as him, there is a certain tone. It's a certain delivery that we hear in all of these innovators. And the best way I can say it is there's a knowingness. It, it comes from putting in the hard yards and. Being relentless in pursuing their dreams. You just feel it don't you chat. Yeah. I, I also have like, kind of, a bit of the Nike, just do it vibe here where. In a way. I think it's a bit of a subtle dig to all of the ones runners out there who, who maybe have these ones. Um, but don't act on them. And I, what I hear Bjarke saying is like, no, like you, you can choose to act on it. And, you know, we had big are doing that. And that's why we're able to build these really interesting built environments for, for clients.
And so I, I kind of take it as a. A bit of a, you know, like, you know, don't rest on your laurels, get off your ass and get out there and trust. And he doesn't stop there with his advice. We've got another one where Bjarke is really setting the scene for, you know, what advice he would have for young architects. So let's jump into some advice from Bjarke Ingels. I think for, for young architects, it's important a to care. Cause if you don't care, it doesn't matter. Be to realize that we're not here to, um, to build for other architects, we're here to build for a four humankind in a way. And we hit to accommodate, uh, life and, and work of so many different people from so many different backgrounds. So that first of all, we really need to care about the people that we're designing for understand, uh, what their dreams and desires and priorities are. Uh, and then we have to use that understanding as the driving force of the work we put forward, because the second we know what questions, uh, that are important, then all we have to do is, uh, is onto them. Well, he really, really brought a couple of themes back for me on that one.
Did you notice he brings back this careful thing again, this isn't like a really subtle. Reference, but I think it's actually at the core of how he innovates. Don't you? Yeah. I'm having more, I think before doing the research on Barrick, I, I saw him a bit as kind of like a, a real big personality and a bit bombastic, but it, it, it's, it's hearing clips like this that really makes me appreciate his care for an empathy for the user. Now the execution may be like, A bit out there and a bit flashy or showy, but I think it's all rooted in this deep empathy for not the client even, but the, the people and the, and the neighborhoods in which these buildings are going to live. The, um, the other thing that you, that you just continually get back. From his approach is not only the care, but, um, the feeling that from taking that care, he has the capacity, uh, the inspiration to dream big, and I really love the way it all fits together. I really think he has this great capacity from almost being an anthropologic anthropologist, studying the world and how it works. It's from that, that he gets his inspiration, uh, which I think is a great way. If you, if you're thinking about, I want to create a business, go and study the world in which you live and work in and in Richard Branson style, see every, every problem is a business opportunity, right? I really think this is at the heart of how he innovates. And I think there's a lot that we can take from him on this. I don't, you helped me answer my question, Mike, and how dark comes up with his ideas. And I think it is very Branson asks. So I'm imagining VR at his studio late at night, he's working on a deadline and maybe he and his few team members are the only people there. And he probably looks around and says, wait a minute. There's all these computers and all this space, that's not being used. You know, why, why is that? You know, like people could be having a, I don't know, a dinner party here, or they could be, you know, students could be studying here or something. So I think, I think you're exactly right. It's always being hyper aware and attuned to those kind of discrepancies or, um, frustrations. That's how Branson talked about all those frustrations out there. And then, um, those are the seeds of the. Ideas, you know, that that turned into, you know, some of these great accomplishments that we've seen from, from everyone that we've profiled here on the show. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I think the, the, the, the final inspiration, uh, we can take from Bri is really about how he sees the future.
And I think that this really gets us into, um, the thinking that he has. Almost the horizon that he sees his work taking place in and how he, I don't know, he has such a big vision that automatically expands the ambition of any project that's brought to him. So. He has some very strong thinking around what kind of world do we see in the future? What kind of world do we want to live in? And, um, let's have a listen to him on our last clip. This is, talking about what kind of world do we want to live in? Why should I even be interested in, in design or architecture? And it is because architecture is not a question of making it nice or pretty, or this style, that style, it's a question of what kind of world do we want to create and what kind of world do we want to live in? And for instance, I just had a son, uh, he's three months old. Congrats. Thank you. And, uh, so he probably won't remember anything for like another two years. So he won't even know that there was a time when you couldn't ski on the roofs of the power plants. So imagine him and his entire generation, that's going to be something they take for granted. So imagine what they're going to ask for their environment, from their environment and what they're going to imagine for the environment. If skiing on power plant, is there, is there sort of baseline.
Yeah, I love it. It's almost answering the question of like why architecture matters. Yes, totally. Totally. And I love how he sees it in this increment or like he creates a shift. That's the new baseline. So he raises the level and then you're like, well, what's the level that comes next. And I think that's a very important trait that we've seen amongst many of the people we've profiled is that you're not, you're surely not satisfied with the status quo and convention. And you're definitely looking around the next corner, but if you're a true innovator, you look around the next corner and then you try and look around the next corner. Right. So, yeah, as you say, you know, then the next corner kind of becomes. You know, the ground truth and reality. So then it's okay from there. How can we look around the next corner? And then if that's true and what happens when we look around the next one and it can be a very hard thing experiment, but that's something there's a friend of mine that, um, Is a huge proponent of that kind of thinking. And whenever we go down those lines of thought, we usually end up in a pretty weird and wacky and cool place. Well, it's interesting because when you think about all of the architects that we have covered in this series, every single one of them, I think meets the criteria prolific. And what I mean by that is. When we made a list of like our favorite houses, uh, favorite buildings from each of them, it's not like a, there was kind of one that we really, really liked. It's like there is an, a list of a dozen and I think Lloyd Wright took the price. I think he designed close to a thousand, had about 500 of those built. And I think arc is just the same. You, you just look at incrementally the, the right of his word. And he seems like he is not even cold, close to retirement.
I mean, this guy just feels like he's amping it up every time it's increment increment increment. And I think that's another, I think that's what happens when you get in a state of flood. When you're doing what you love when you've decoded it, then you're reassembling all of the pots and finding huge problems to go and solve and big dreams to make come true. Yeah. And you know, he's quite, as you say, young in his career as an architect, so I'm very curious to see how much staying power he and his firm. Have, and how much of their ambitions they're able to. I mean, I mentioned this whole like building on Mars thing, like he's got it all planned out. He's got the beautiful PowerPoint and everything, you know, if it really happens, remains to, to be seen. But, you know, I can say from my direct experience with, with his buildings and Copenhagen, You know, I've been very delighted with them. And I can say that I would like to see more, very inspiring and, and, and it puts Copenhagen firmly back on my list. I've been there a long time ago. I got to get back there. So, um, yeah, one more time. And you can, uh, you can go to the Harbor, uh, pool, which was. It's very first building or you the middle of winter, man. I want to ski down a power plant. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, we'll have to go twice.
Uh, well, I mean, what a fantastic architect to study, what a great person to learn from all about breaking the status quo. He's Branson, he's Musk, and he's doing it in the world of architecture. I mean, Bianca angles has so much to offer us designee. Hm. Yeah. And. It's for me, it's a nice cap. We kind of went in reverse order from kind of the, uh, the heavyweights of a few years passed and then Zaha and now are, you know, almost a contemporary of, of ours. Um, it's been really fun to, to go through the century in, in architecture. Very, very different, uh, I guess realizations of their ideas, but as like a broken record, there, there's so many similarities between how they think and advice that they have for us, not just amongst themselves, but connected to all of the other entrepreneurs and innovators that we've profiled on the show. And, um, that brings me to the upcoming shows.
Our next, show's going to be a, kind of a nice detour from this study of individual entrepreneurs. We're going to do our best of 2018 looking forward into the future 2019 and beyond show. And we're hoping to have a special guest join us for that. That's going to be great. There's lots of things happening in the world of tech, the ups, the downs. We're seeing an IPO frenzy. We're seeing a social media crunch. Chad. There's so much for us to review in the world of startups, technology, and entrepreneurship. I am really looking forward to the best of 2018 2019 show Jesus, the series that comes after that show. And we have not revealed it yet. You mean our favorite author? Yeah. So. Our most popular show by far show 41 with assignments and neck, and to pay further Omar's to Simon and really dive deep and unpack his ideas. We've decided to spend an entire show on each of his books. So drum roll. I'm pleased to announce that, uh, we will be doing not one, not two but five shows on, uh, on Simon and his amazing, uh, ideas that have come from all of his books from start with why to leaders eat last and, uh, all the way up to his most recent book, the infinite game. Yeah. And look, this is not an indulgence on our side. I mean, 27,189 of you loved assignments Sinek. Um, it is the ultimate heavyweight show for us. Um, and. We personally love his work because it, Simon Sinek gives us so many clues onto what leadership looks like, how to become a great leader.
And, um, he has a wealth of wisdom that is so digestible. So usable that, uh, with the upcoming launch of the infinite game, it feels only appropriate for us to go to double down on him and find out. Uh, more about, uh, Simon and his work, but also to hear from you, our audience, why you love him so much, because we've got so much love for that show, um, where we're super pumped. And I can tell you that we've already begun the research on that. And some of the clips are. So inspiring and there's a lot inside of that and, um, it's still gonna be the longest special we've ever done. So we're ready to double down into the land of Simon Sinek. Yeah. In that I'm sending kind of a personal goal to try and get in touch with his, uh, publicity team as he's on his, a book tour. I know authors love to get on podcasts when they're coming out with books. So fingers crossed. We will, uh, fire shot across his bow and see, see how close we can get. So if any of you listeners have any connections into the world of Simon Sinek?
Please reach out to us. Uh, and, and speaking of which you can find all of the things that we've just gust on this show. All of our previous shows, uh, at moonshot, Stott IO, and we really love and appreciate all of the feedback that we get. And of course appreciate all of the reviews that you leave on iTunes that helps other people discover and learn from the show. Just like you. Yeah. Um, and, um, don't forget. We love a good email. We got a lovely email, um, very recently from, from a listener who, who. Thanked us for the show, but said, we, you know, we, we make that commute to, and from work just that much more manageable. And he loved all of the inspiring people that we, that we study. And I can't tell you how much it means when people send in those, those notes. Um, so keep them recorded, you know, last year or even the year before.
It's, it's always great to hear from brand new listeners that, uh, That are just discovering the show. Yep. And, and, um, we're now over at w we're now five out of five stars on the iTunes store. So we have over 10 reviews. We need more folks get in there, tell us what you think of the show, give us a rating with, we would really appreciate it. And we can't wait to dive into this next series of shows. Lots of good stuff coming up. So I think, I think we're about done Chad. Yeah, the, uh, the sun has finally sat here. Um, although it's much, much later than it was in the dark and jury, I winter. So again, Oh, excited that it's spring has arrived, but I'm super, we're excited to be seeing you here live in person in New York in just a few weeks, Mike. I, uh, Can't wait to have you here. And maybe we can, um, if not do a live show together, do some recording in person. Sounds so good. All right. Well, listen, Chad, it's been wonderful. I can't wait for the show next week. Thank you to you to out to all our listeners. It's been great diving into the world of Bjarke angles. We've learned so much about challenging the status quo. I'm ready to go do it. So I'm going to sign off and say, that's a wrap of the moonshots podcasts.