Dezeen Magazine

Bjarke Ingels to star in feature-length documentary

In the trailer for a new documentary staring Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect and BIG founder has revealed the anxiety and pressure he feels to create "extraordinary" architecture.

Titled BIG Time, the feature-length documentary follows the 42-year-old architect from boardroom to building site as he visits some of the firm's in-construction projects.

It also takes in his Via 57 West "courtscraper" in New York, and his Mountain Dwellings housing and Danish Maritime Museum in Copenhagen.

"To see abstract ideas become concrete reality is what it's all about," says Ingels. "We want to give to the world something it has not yet seen, and therefore does not fit into the any of the boxes."

The trailer is punctuated by ominous flashes of brain scans, later revealed to belong to Ingels, who has suffered a concussion during the course of the documentary's filming.

"I got a concussion and since then, I've had more or less a constant headache," he says. "The thing about a concussion is that you have to try to relax as much as possible. But that is pretty tough."

Bjarke is filmed as he undergoes a brain scan for his concussion.

Later in meetings he alludes to the pressure he feels as the "name" behind his firm, BIG.

"There are some expectations that if we create something for the World Trade Center – then of course it has to be something extraordinary and I feel anxious about it because now we have to move fast," he says.

"Life is probably progressive rather than proportional. If this is where I suddenly become unable to contribute meaningfully you almost just lie down and wait for everything to be over."

The documentary, which is shot and directed by Kaspar Astrup Schröder, will premier at the Copenhagen Architecture Festival on 25 April 2017 and in cinemas across Denmark from 3 May.

Ingels was also the subject of a recent Netflix documentary, in which he discussed how his "crazy ideas" have revolutionised how architecture is perceived by the general public.

His firm has recently launched its own inhouse engineering team – BIG Engineering – to make its ever-increasingly more technical projects a reality.

BIG, which came in just short of the top spot on the inaugural Dezeen Hot List, is currently working on a ying-and-yang-shaped panda house for Copenhagen Zoo and a headquarters for Google in California.