Bjarke Ingels Group Commissioned For Harlem Residential

Harlem might be getting its own unorthodox residential building, designed by award-winning Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. Blumenfeld Development has recently hired the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to design an apartment building in Gotham Plaza between Lexington and Third.

The project is still in its preliminary stages and no final design has been decided on, but given the unique nature of the projects BIG is known for it is likely that the building will be turning heads once it is built. The 200 units in the building will operate under the 80/20 program, meaning that 20% of the units will be affordable.

BIG already has experience developing in New York, and has received recognition for the pyramid-shaped residential on West 57^th Street being developed by Durst Fetner Residential. BIG has also proposed a design for a “Titanic-prow” viewing platform for Pier 6 on the Brooklyn Waterfront and recently made headlines by winning the French Urban Center Design Contest with a large scale combination of a rural environment with a dense urban layout dubbed Europacity.

Danish Firm Wins French Urban Center Design Contest

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels with the aptly named Bjarke Ingels Group released a statement earlier this year in April that his firm had won a design competition to create a new urban center in the Triangle de Gonesse region of France. The project, dubbed Europacity, is an ambitious attempt at combining a dense urban environment seamlessly with the mostly rural environment that defines the current Triangle de Gonesse area.

Concept art shows almost science fiction-esque features, showing agricultural and open fields serving as a roof to highways, shops and even what appears to be an indoor ski slope. Bjarke Ingels goes over the design philosophy in the video below, and you can check out the concept art here.