Latest news with #BjarkeIngelsGroup
The Independent
29-07-2025
- The Independent
Abandoned power plant outside New York City to be transformed into huge family attraction with water slides
Designs have been unveiled revealing how an abandoned coal-burning power plant outside New York City will be transformed into a multi-story family attraction with a glass façade, swimming pools, water slides, restaurants and a semi-green roof. The power plant, reimagined by renowned global architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (aka Big), will be the central attraction at a new 125-acre waterfront park on Manresa Island in southeast Connecticut called Manresa Wilds, set to open in 2030. This landscape, once scarred by pollution and inaccessible to the public for 75 years, will become "a vibrant first-of-its-kind destination where nature, history and imagination meet", according to Manresa Island Corporation, the nonprofit leading the creation of Manresa Wilds. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the former island — a causeway was built in 1860 connecting it to the mainland and South Norwalk — was home to a recreation destination called the Manresa Institute, with the coal-fired power plant arriving in the 1950s and subsequently much controversy. A major fuel oil spill severely damaged the area's tidal flats in 1969, while water contamination in the 70s, 80s, and 90s made the power plant, by then oil powered, the focus of protests by environmental groups. Ironically, damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 enhanced the site's natural environment — the power plant was decommissioned in 2013, a birch forest sprang up on disposed coal ash and the osprey population soared. The new park has been designed by New York City -based landscape architects Scape, which wants the public to enjoy the island's ecological richness, and a host of new features. The firm said in a statement that these will include waterfront walking paths, a restored wetland, tree canopies to mitigate extreme heat and flooding, an "expansive" green lawn and meadow, a public beach with "sweeping views of the Long Island Sound and New York City" and pedestrian bridges "that will provide opportunities to observe wildlife". Manresa Wilds, it's claimed, will lead to the "protection, expansion and revitalization of the wetlands and salt marshes". The vision for the power plant was also revealed in the statement, by Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director of Big. He said: "We seek to rediscover and reanimate the majestic spaces hidden within the bones of the decommissioned piece of infrastructure. "Boilers, silos, and turbine halls are post-industrial cathedrals awaiting exploration and reinterpretation." The eight-story boiler building will feature "multiple swimming areas and food and beverage options", with the turbine hall converted into a multi-purpose event space and speakeasy. Big revealed that the adjacent office building — the smallest structure — "will provide opportunities for marine and ecological learning as a laboratory with classrooms and research spaces". An underground water channel, meanwhile, "will be unearthed to create a scenic waterway that connects the boiler building, turbine hall, and office building". Ingels added: "As an extension of Scape's resettlement of the island for the enjoyment of human life among many other forms of life, we seek to extend that resettlement into the cavernous spaces within. "By editing rather than adding, we will open up and clear out the existing spaces so that the once coal-powered plant can become the framework for the social and cultural life of Manresa's future — from energy infrastructure to social infrastructure." Manresa Island Corporation told The Independent that the project will be of huge benefit to the local population. It said: "While the project's programing and final design are still in development, Manresa Wilds will support the local economy in many ways, first by unlocking access to 1.75 miles of waterfront to create meaningful recreational and educational programing for all. "Manresa Island Corp is also committed to providing long-term economic benefit for the Norwalk community through partnerships with local businesses and academic institutions and numerous employment opportunities."
The Independent
29-07-2025
- The Independent
Abandoned power plant outside New York City to be transformed into huge family resort with water slides
Designs have been unveiled revealing how an abandoned coal-burning power plant outside New York City will be transformed into a multi-story family resort with a glass façade, swimming pools, water slides, restaurants and a semi-green roof. The power plant, reimagined by renowned global architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (aka Big), will be the central attraction at a new 125-acre waterfront park on Manresa Island in southeast Connecticut called Manresa Wilds, set to open in 2030. This landscape, once scarred by pollution and inaccessible to the public for 75 years, will become "a vibrant first-of-its-kind destination where nature, history and imagination meet", according to Manresa Island Corporation, the nonprofit leading the creation of Manresa Wilds. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the former island — a causeway was built in 1860 connecting it to the mainland and South Norwalk — was home to a recreation destination called the Manresa Institute, with the coal-fired power plant arriving in the 1950s and subsequently much controversy. A major fuel oil spill severely damaged the area's tidal flats in 1969, while water contamination in the 70s, 80s, and 90s made the power plant, by then oil powered, the focus of protests by environmental groups. Ironically, damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 enhanced the site's natural environment — the power plant was decommissioned in 2013, a birch forest sprang up on disposed coal ash and the osprey population soared. The new park has been designed by New York City -based landscape architects Scape, which wants the public to enjoy the island's ecological richness, and a host of new features. The firm said in a statement that these will include waterfront walking paths, a restored wetland, tree canopies to mitigate extreme heat and flooding, an "expansive" green lawn and meadow, a public beach with "sweeping views of the Long Island Sound and New York City" and pedestrian bridges "that will provide opportunities to observe wildlife". Manresa Wilds, it's claimed, will lead to the "protection, expansion and revitalization of the wetlands and salt marshes". The vision for the power plant was also revealed in the statement, by Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director of Big. He said: "We seek to rediscover and reanimate the majestic spaces hidden within the bones of the decommissioned piece of infrastructure. "Boilers, silos, and turbine halls are post-industrial cathedrals awaiting exploration and reinterpretation." The eight-story boiler building will feature "multiple swimming areas and food and beverage options", with the turbine hall converted into a multi-purpose event space and speakeasy. Big revealed that the adjacent office building — the smallest structure — "will provide opportunities for marine and ecological learning as a laboratory with classrooms and research spaces". An underground water channel, meanwhile, "will be unearthed to create a scenic waterway that connects the boiler building, turbine hall, and office building". Ingels added: "As an extension of Scape's resettlement of the island for the enjoyment of human life among many other forms of life, we seek to extend that resettlement into the cavernous spaces within. "By editing rather than adding, we will open up and clear out the existing spaces so that the once coal-powered plant can become the framework for the social and cultural life of Manresa's future — from energy infrastructure to social infrastructure." Manresa Island Corporation told The Independent that the project will be of huge benefit to the local population. It said: "While the project's programing and final design are still in development, Manresa Wilds will support the local economy in many ways, first by unlocking access to 1.75 miles of waterfront to create meaningful recreational and educational programing for all. "Manresa Island Corp is also committed to providing long-term economic benefit for the Norwalk community through partnerships with local businesses and academic institutions and numerous employment opportunities."
Straits Times
25-07-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Places Of The Heart: Wander and wonder at Changi Airport with architect Jonathan Christian Chin
Find out what's new on ST website and app. Who: Mr Jonathan Christian Chin, 34, is a Singapore-registered architect who has amassed an award-winning portfolio that includes public, residential, mixed-use and civic space design through his local and international stints. He graduated from the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Department of Architecture in 2017 with a master's degree in architecture. During his time there , he garnered honours such as the Lee Kip Lin Medal for Best Graduation Dissertation in History and Theory of Architecture, and the Aedas Medal and Prize in Architectural Design. After graduating, he worked at acclaimed architectural practices such as DP Architects (DPA) in Singapore and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in Copenhagen. In 2021, outside of work, he co-created a place-making installation, called Park Yourself, with his wife Pearlyn Chang, who is 31 and a landscape architect. Their design of an Instagrammable, pandemic-resilient playground – which was shown at indoor and outdoor spaces around Singapore – won the URA-Redas Spark Challenge award in 2021. It also received the Singapore Good Design Award in 2023, attesting to Mr Chin's commitment to inclusive, community-focused design. Architect Jonathan Chin with his wife Pearlyn Chang, a landscape architect, at their award-winning installation Park Yourself. PHOTO: COURTESY OF JONATHAN CHIN In 2022, he joined BIG, headquartered in Denmark's capital, to expand his perspective on sustainability and radical innovation. In Copenhagen, he collaborated with some of the brightest minds in the industry and worked on architectural projects across Europe and Asia, gaining insights into differing design methodologies and cultures. Mr Jonathan Chin at Bjarke Ingels Group's office in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2023. PHOTO: PEARLYN CHANG Based in Singapore, Mr Chin works independently while giving back to the architectural community by mentoring students as a guest reviewer at NUS. He also serves as a council member at the Singapore Institute of Architects, where he champions young architects and fosters a culture of appreciation for good design in Singapore. 'My first choice of a place of the heart would definitely be Changi Airport. It is a space in Singapore where architecture, emotion and memory converge. We all seek different kinds of reprieve. Some people find it in nature, some in retail therapy, others in special architectural spaces. But I have always felt that Changi Airport brings all those worlds together, especially in a city like Singapore, where heat and rapid pace are constants. One gets the greenery without the sweat, the quiet without isolation and the motion without chaos. It is not just about the airport facilities, but also what the space allows: a moment to breathe. In 2022, my wife and I took the big leap to Copenhagen, where both of us were fortunate to join the Bjarke Ingels Group, one of Europe's top design firms, to grow professionally and explore the world. When living abroad for long spells, opportunities to return to Singapore for a break become quite emotional. Walking through Changi after being overseas, I still feel quiet pride. Whenever I return home, I prefer to linger rather than rush to the exit. Sometimes, I wander through Jewel, not to shop or sightsee, but just to walk, wander and wonder. It does not just mark my journeys, but also quietly holds the 'in-between' moments. Those intervals are often where I find the most meaning. Architect Jonathan Chin at Jewel Changi Airport on July 23. ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY Changi Airport also holds a treasury of nostalgia for me. As a student, I used to spend late nights at the viewing gallery of Terminal 2 (T2), one of the few 24-hour sanctuaries in Singapore. I would study through the night while watching aircraft take off and land, mindful of the irony that the constant motion of planes against the sky seemed to nudge me to be more focused in my thinking. There is something therapeutic about plane-spotting – the rhythm of arrivals and departures mirroring the cadence of life. Also, my relationship with the airport is both personal and inherited. When I was growing up , my father Ignatius Chin worked at Changi Airport Group (CAG) as part of a team involved in the construction of Jewel from 2014 to 2019, a chapter of his career he is incredibly proud of. Although he is no longer with us, those scenes are etched in memory, shaping my understanding of urban spaces and belonging. He regaled us with tales about Jewel's design process, the immense coordination that went on behind the scenes and tiny details such as how they designed the Skytrain to pass through what is now called the Shiseido Forest Valley; and the complexity of the contiguous grid shell of the dome that had an outsize design impact. At the time, I did not fully grasp the significance, but I remember how animated he became when recounting his experiences. Through him, I later had the rare opportunity to meet the architect behind Jewel, Mr Moshe Safdie. As a student back then, I was still trying to understand what architecture meant beyond drawings and deadlines. Mr Safdie was warm and insightful, and the encounter left an indelible imprint by humanising architecture for me. Mr Jonathan Chin with Mr Moshe Safdie at Changi Airport in 2014. Mr Safdie led the design of Jewel Changi Airport. PHOTO: IGNATIUS CHIN It then became clear that Jewel was not just a building. It was also an idea that brought people together through light, landscape and scale. When friends visit from overseas, I do not just pick them up from the airport. I also guide them through the different terminals, starting from Jewel. If it is an early morning arrival, the tour starts with a leisurely breakfast at Ya Kun Kaya Toast, with cups of locally roasted coffee and pillowy toasted bread. Stepping into Changi Airport, whether travel-related or simply for a quiet break, helps me to reset my perspectives. Today, even when I am not travelling, I visit Changi regularly as I live in the eastern part of the island. I find that cycling via the Jurassic Mile helps me decompress after a long day at work. Other times, I catch a late-night film at the basement of Terminal 3, which has round-the-clock screenings of movies and live sports events. Growing up with the aviation landmark in the background shaped how I view space today. My father's stories and my own quiet rituals are fragments that form a larger collage centred on connection. Changi Airport is the place where I first learnt that architecture can move people – both literally and metaphorically. '
Digital Trends
10-06-2025
- Digital Trends
Google has a really weird problem at its new London HQ
When Google's striking new office building finally opens in London later this year, it'll be home to up to as many as 7,000 workers … and possibly a few foxes, too. The cunning creature has taken up residence on the building's 300-meter-long rooftop garden and its unexpected occupation has been an issue for the last three years, according to a Guardian report (via London Centric). Recommended Videos The expansive roof area has been filled with wildflowers and woodland plants and is supposed to be an area for Google employees to relax and enjoy a bite to eat, or maybe even dream up the next big idea for the tech giant. But the lush garden is likely to be out of bounds if the foxes are still roaming free there. 'Fox sightings at construction sites are pretty common, and our King's Cross development is no exception,' Google told the London Centric in a statement. 'While foxes have been occasionally spotted at the site, their appearances have been brief and have had minimal impact on the ongoing construction.' But the four-legged residents have reportedly been digging burrows in the carefully landscaped grounds, with some people connected with the site having seen fox poop about the place. While London is famous for fox sightings, it's not clear how the animal managed to find its way to the roof of the 11-story building, which has been under construction since 2018. The building, designed by Thomas Heatherwick Studio and Bjarke Ingels Group, features the garden as a centerpiece and is supposed to be a shared space for not only Google workers but also bees, bats, birds, and butterflies. But not foxes. With the building set to welcome workers before the end of this year, there's still time to clear the garden of the pesky animal. But with foxes known to be resourceful and highly adaptable, getting rid of them may be a greater challenge than expected.
Globe and Mail
29-05-2025
- Globe and Mail
At the Venice Biennale, techno-utopianism takes centre stage
Inside a 400-year-old Venetian arsenal, a Bhutanese carver chisels a six-metre log while a robotic arm mimics his every move. Wood chips fly from freshly sculpted dragon wings. This duet of human and machine – courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group – captures the tone of this year's Venice Biennale of Architecture. Under the theme 'Intelligens,' head curator Carlo Ratti has assembled a show about architecture, AI and 'collective intelligence,' and how they might solve the climate crisis. It's a sprawling, sometimes chaotic fair of ideas, as ever. But, you might ask: How does a robot carving replica dragons help save the world? An air of techno-utopianism spills through the main show and throughout the 65 national exhibitions, including Canada's. The exhibitions fill the Corderie, a 300-metre-long rope factory within Venice's historic Arsenale, with nearly 300 projects and 750 contributors. (A handful of Canadian practices make appearances, including Atelier Pierre Thibault and Reza Nik of SHEEEP.) Models, robots and vague promises of sustainability crowd the centuries-old hall, illuminated by brief AI-generated blurbs. Ratti, who runs the MIT Senseable City Lab, believes deeply in technological progress. Canadians may remember his contribution to Sidewalk Labs in Toronto: LED paving tiles that could reroute traffic at the tap of an iPad. (What could go wrong?) In one powerful moment, an installation led by architectural historian Daniel A. Barber, literally cranks up the heat: A battery of droning air conditioners pumps waste heat into the gallery, confronting visitors with the hidden costs of thermal comfort. Think about the future and you will begin to sweat. Over in the leafy Giardini, the heart of the exhibition, the Biennale's national pavilions offer other kinds of clarity. Belgium, led by landscape architect Bas Smets, uses an indoor garden to regulate temperature and interface with its climate-control system. The Danish team catalogues and disassembles the pieces of their 1950s modernist building in a circular design strategy. Germany reflects on the cooling potential of landscape. Meanwhile, Canada's building, in a corner of the Giardini, presents Picoplanktonics from Living Room Collective. Here, a series of structures, including swooping 3-D printed constructions, all carry a bacterium that can absorb carbon dioxide from the air. 'As an industry, we need to insist on establishing new norms,' explained the collective's leader, Andrea Shin Ling, who is a researcher at ETH Zurich. 'I hope we can prioritize a system that's less resource-intensive and prioritize ecological resilience.' (The collective also includes artist and curator Clayton Lee, and architects and academics Nicholas Hoban and Vincent Hui.) So how does this system perform its ecological work? The showpieces are three sinuous structures of 3-D-printed sand infused with Synechococcus PCC 7002, a species of picoplankton. 'It draws down carbon dioxide from the air, makes it react with calcium, magnesium and other ions in the salt water, and creates minerals that bind the sand more tightly together,' Ms. Shin Ling said. Those structures were created through parametric design software, a standard design tool that defines 3-D geometries based on specific constraints. Here the blobs are 'optimized' to expose as much surface area as possible for maximum air contact. There's art here as well as science. The blobs fall in a tradition of parametric design that goes back to the 1980s work of architects such as Zaha Hadid. As with much in Ratti's show, this reeks of tech for tech's sake. Give the blobs this much: They are elegant. Floating in a shallow pool of brown water, the forms stand at ease in the eccentric Canadian pavilion. The Italian architects BBPR designed the structure in the sixties with a tipi-like form; its semicircular shape and irregularly slanted roof have bedevilled curators ever since. 'What we're finding most interesting is how the exhibition is adapting around the architecture of the pavilion itself,' artist and team member Clayton Lee said. 'Where the light is hitting is where the bacteria are happiest.' The material's utility is another question. This goop grows very slowly; Shin Ling estimates 0.3 millimetres per year. To serve as a meaningful climate mitigation strategy, it would need to expand to a massive scale – imagine something as dull and replicable as solar panels. 'I'm not pretending this will replace concrete,' Shin Ling said. 'But it is something you can put on a building to draw down carbon dioxide continuously. Because it's photosynthetic, you don't have to feed it sugar or use energy-intensive systems.' And yet the installation is being maintained by five full-time staff and 21 student fellows. During the opening event, a staffer in a blue lab coat was spraying the mesh with a nutrient solution, tending it as one would a delicate flower. Q+A: Can architecture save the world? It's worth a try Opinion: Toronto firm LGA is one of the bright lights in Canadian architecture To be fair, architecture exhibitions always include research that veers toward art and others that flirt with technical and scientific research. Canada's theatrical science experiment fits well enough. It's not necessarily a wise choice, though. At the pavilion opening, Canada Council head Michelle Chawla said that 'architecture and design play a crucial role in introducing Canada to the world.' Indeed. But the Canada Council for the Arts has essentially abandoned architecture and landscape architecture in recent years. At the same time, Canadian architecture and the related fields are stagnant. For a generation now the country has smothered young design talent and fattened up a herd of corporate design firms. Canada needs a policy to create better places and incubate talent. Instead, its Biennale pavilion is incubating bacteria.
