The international design firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) returns to the National Building Museum in Washington DC with a behind-the-scenes look at its creative process. The exhibition titled “HOT TO COLD: an odyssey of architectural adaptation” takes its audience from the coldest to the hottest parts of our planet to explore how BIG’s design solutions are shaped by their climatic and cultural contexts. Over 60 three-dimensional models will be suspended from the second-floor balconies of the Museum’s historic Great Hall. 20 of these projects will be premiered and each project is interpreted through Iwan Baan‘s photography, films by Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka, and the Grammy Award-winning graphic artist Stefan Sagmeister’s design for the accompanying catalog by Taschen.

BIG was founded in 2005 by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and has since taken the world by storm with sustainable, seductive and community-driven designs. Ingels has coined the phrase ‘hedonistic sustainability” to explain his architectural philosophy that says environmentally responsible neighbourhoods and buildings don’t need to be defined by sacrifice and pain. Architecture is not just about decorating a box, but more about reinterpreting and reconfiguring things for the better: “If we’re extremely successful we can maybe build 50 structures in our life span. But if we can make something that inspires others, it might be the beginning of a new species that can evolve and migrate, and we can make a much more substantial impact on the world we play a role in creating.”

About ‘Hot To Cold’ he said: “Architecture never happens in the clinical conditions of a lab. It is always responding to a series of existing conditions – the context, the culture, the landscape, the climate. Our climate is the one thing we can’t escape – the one condition we always have to respond to. HOT TO COLD is conceived as a colorful exploration of how architecture evolves in response to its context and climate and as an artistic contemplation of how life in return reacts to the framework created by the architecture.”

“I can’t imagine a greater venue than the National Building Museum for this journey, looking back at our work and massive transformation over the last six years from both sides of the Atlantic,” added Ingels.

The exhibition remains on view until August 30, 2015. More information here.

Photos: Matt Carbone