The Village is conceived as a central living room a dynamic hub surrounded by a collection of spaces tailored to the needs of the Hopkins community. The building negotiates the sloping grade of the site to allow direct entry from all four levels of the building, while maintaining a human scale and providing several accessible routes across the site. Arriving on Charles Street, students and visitors are greeted by an open building façade with dining areas spilling out onto an adjacent plaza.
The Gammel Hellerup School just north of Copenhagen is a well-preserved piece of architecture and a good example of building on a human scale. BIG was asked to design two new buildings, a new multi-purpose hall and a new arts building for the growing school. The challenge was to develop a masterplan and architectural design for new buildings that met the school’s changing needs while still respecting the traditional architecture.
Vancouver House is located at the main entrance to Vancouver right where Granville bridge triforks when it reaches downtown. The resulting triangular slices of land had remained undeveloped until now. When engaged by Westbank to design a residential high-rise for the highly complex site, BIG started by mapping the constraints: setbacks from the streets; a m setback from the bridge; and a neighboring park had to be protected from shadows. After all the constraints, a small triangular site nearly too small to build on was left.
Maritime Youth House is located on the island of Amager, in Copenhagen. In , PLOT (BIG + JDS) was invited to design a new building for two user groups with different requirements: a sailing club that needed most of the site to moor their boats and a youth center that wanted outdoor space for the kids to play. The geotechnical report revealed pollution on the site with / of the building budget allocated to moving the topsoil from the site to a landfill.
In , restaurant Noma known as the Worlds Best Restaurant- closed its doors to the th century warehouse that had been its home for fourteen years. After more than three years of planning and collaboration, Noma reopened in on the outskirts of autonomous district Christiania this time at the protected site of an old fortification once used to store mines for the Royal Danish Navy.