Search Engine x Better in Person

Search Engine

The episode begins with an announcement from Search Engine regarding its upcoming transition into video production by 2027. The main segment

Key takeaways

• Bjarke Ingels is collaborating with NASA and the 3D printing company Icon to develop construction methods for the moon using lunar dust.
• The architecture firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) operates across approximately seven global cities, including Copenhagen, New York, and Shanghai.

Main topics

• Search Engine video transition
• Bjarke Ingels interview

Notable quotes

My canvas is reality.

Conclusion

An inspiring exploration of how large-scale architectural vision shape

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Mubi. If you're tired of endlessly scrolling through streaming algorithms designed for passive background noise, you need to check out Mubi. Mubi is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world, curating and elevating visionary filmmaking that's handpicked always. It's the kind of platform for movies you'll actually watch, fall in love with, and keep thinking and talking about long after the credits roll. One of their newest exclusive titles is Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, directed by visionary writer-director Jane Schoenbrun, who you might know from I Saw the TV Glow. It's a world-expanding, genre-bending wonder starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. This story follows a young director trying to resurrect the fated Camp Miasma slasher franchise. But when she visits the original reclusive star, they spiral into this blood-soaked world of desire. Fear and sheer delirium. If you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash search engine. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash search engine for a whole month of great cinema for free. Speaker 5 (1:33) Hello, Search Engine Nation. I have some exciting, maybe controversial, probably not that controversial news about our show. And then I'm going to play you an interview from a different show that I enjoyed for reasons which will become clear. So we'll have a board meeting soon for our incognito mode listeners in Q4. That's where we typically talk about the machinations, dreams, and internal numbers of Search Engine. But there's one piece of news I'm excited about and wanted to blab early for everybody else. Search Engine is about to start experimenting with video. This November, we're moving into a new studio of our own where we'll have not just microphones, but also cameras. The moving image was invented in 1888. We will begin experimenting with it in 2027. To be clear, we like making this audio show. It's working. We don't intend to stop. But we would like more people to find it. And most people's internet now is video, including often mine. Also, honestly, 2026 for me was the year when I found myself watching other people working in video who just made me feel inspired. I had this feeling like other people are having fun. I want to try. So next year, we're going to get caught trying. You will watch us throw some spaghetti at the wall. Some of it will be delicious. Some of it we won't talk about afterwards. But for today, I want to share one of the videos I found inspiring. It's from a show called Better in Person, which is hosted by Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics. And it's just cool how he found a way to take the vibe and sensibility that works in his audio show and translate it to a visual show. He hosts the show from his actual house, which... I just like seeing the inside of somebody's house who I've listened to for years. And so we're going to share our favorite episode so far. It's an interview Stephen did with the world-renowned architect, Bjarke Engels. This is the guy who built a power plant in Copenhagen with a ski slope on its roof. He's also helping NASA design buildings to go to the moon. Fascinating man. However, because Search Engine right now is an audio-only feed, we're going to share the audio, which works on its own. I've both listened to and watched this. If you want to see the video, which is really cool, we're linking to the video. There's a link in our show notes. You can just click and see the inside of Stephen Dubner's house where he keeps all his stuff. I'll let Stephen take it from here. Speaker 2 (4:04) This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Bjarke Ingalls. Speaker 4 (4:10) When I first started thinking about who to have on the show, I made a list, many lists, actually, and one name always wound up near the top, Bjarke Ingels. If you already know something about Bjarke Ingels, you'll understand why I wanted him. And if you don't, you can thank me later. He is an architect in New York City and many other places. And there is a chance that he will go down as one of the greats. He started his first studio called Plot in 2001. By the way, he told us that Bjarke means little bear in Danish. When he was 31, he founded Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG. They have designed the Spiral in New York City, the Lego House back in Denmark, and they're currently building a stadium for the old Oakland A's who are moving to Las Vegas. He's also working with NASA and a 3D printing company called Icon. They're trying to figure out how to do construction on the moon using mostly moon dust as the raw building material. I'm making this new show in my living room, and we had just moved in. So Bjarke brought a housewarming present. I have a gift for you. It was synthetic moon dust that they had created for that NASA project. He poured some out. It looked like fine gray beach sand or maybe the remains of your favorite pet. This was my first time meeting Bjarke. I had tried to get a coffee with him before we taped, but we couldn't make it happen. Bjarke Ingalls can be elusive. Speaker 4 (5:37) But I started out as a reporter. I'm used to just hanging around places. So I went to hang out at the big offices in downtown Brooklyn. And I talked to some of the architects there, including Rachel Wilkins, a senior landscape architect. So Speaker 5 (5:52) we're Speaker 4 (5:52) talking to Bjarke next week. But Bjarke, he's not in New York very much. He's busy. He's really busy. He said he's going to call me sometime. So I actually took my phone off to disturb the whole day. He didn't call. So I have a feeling he's just going to show up. You think? Speaker 2 (6:06) Yeah, I think so. He's pretty, he's very amiable. Speaker 4 (6:09) I met designer Noreen Chang in the hallway. Okay, so we're interviewing him next week. There must be some question that you would really like to ask him yourself that you've never gotten the opportunity. Speaker 1 (6:20) Oh, man. Speaker 4 (6:21) Anything, wide open. Speaker 1 (6:23) Anything, oh my gosh. And you know what? Speaker 4 (6:25) It can be anonymous, too. Speaker 1 (6:27) This feels very anonymous. Oh, man. And Speaker 4 (6:31) here is designer Casey Tucker. I'm really curious Speaker 5 (6:34) about his evolving take on the starting point for designing a building. I think he's a step Speaker 2 (6:41) ahead of us. Speaker 5 (6:45) I Speaker 4 (6:45) was starting to think that either Bjarke Ingels is kind of wonderful or maybe all his employees were just lying to me. A week after my visit to the big offices, Bjarke showed Speaker 5 (6:57) up at my apartment, moondust in hand. Speaker 4 (7:00) Yeah, so I've been looking forward to this. I remember the first time I saw one of your buildings was your first, I think your first building in New York, Via 57, is that what it's called? Exactly. I saw it going up, I saw a skeleton, and I first thought, you know, it's on the West Side Highway, and there are those maybe salt sheds that the highway department uses there. No, Speaker 5 (7:19) I Speaker 4 (7:19) actually said, yeah. And I thought, oh, they're building more salt sheds. I saw this amazing-looking shape. I had no idea what it was. I'd never heard your name. And then as it started to flesh out, I thought it was just amazing and different. and vibrant and then I started to hear about you and it seems that you're kind of amazing and different and vibrant as well so I really appreciate your being here. Can you just say your name in the Danish and English? Speaker 3 (7:46) So my name in Danish would be Bjarke Ingels and I normally say in English it's like saying B-R-K quickly B-R-K. The firm is how big now? We are probably around 700 architects. And you're in how many? Eight, ten cities? Yeah, we are like in seven cities. Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Speaker 4 (8:10) Zurich and Shanghai. I mean, you're pretty big. You're building a lot of big projects. But I'm just curious about the balance between the commerce and the creativity or the art or whatever you call it. I'm not a big one for titles. Also, I think I... Speaker 3 (8:22) You don't really need a title when you already named the company after yourself. But I am not the CEO. My role is really like the... Creative director? Creative direction, exactly. And in that sense, I do have an important take on a lot of things. But my focus is really what we're doing, what we should be doing. and how we're Speaker 4 (8:47) doing it. So you're steering the ship in terms of what kind of projects do we want to do, though, in addition to design? Speaker 3 (8:53) Yeah, so what kind of projects do we want to do and how to win that work. Once in a while I have a great idea, and I love it when that happens, but it's not my job description. My job description is to make sure that whenever the brilliant idea presents itself, no matter who comes up with it, I have to make sure that that's the idea that we pursue together. How do you make sure that the person who had the idea gets proper credit? We do it by never attributing... Everybody has full credit for the whole project, no matter what they did in it. Where you create an almost primordial soup by doing a ton of iterations and putting everything out there so that the eureka moment can present itself. If everybody is somehow sitting there and... holding a little bit back because they want to make sure that they get full credit for whatever idea they come with. That also means like, then we don't really want your idea to be the best one because I wouldn't want my idea to be the best one. But also if it's your idea and I'm going to spend the next 10 years making that idea come true and every time you show up in a meeting, you remind everybody, this is my great idea. Then it's not going to be very fun, right? Speaker 4 (10:07) So... As an architect, you are commissioned to or win a competition to or somehow enter into an agreement to design a building. Then let's say the building gets built and it's successful, it opens up. Somebody owns it, you don't own it. But you made it. As far as I know, there's no such thing as an architecture royalty. I've never heard of it. Maybe there is. No, yeah, exactly. Speaker 3 (10:32) One of my good friends, he's a kind of serial entrepreneur. And we found that there were so many... similarities between the work we do and also why, after having done this for 25 years, I still love it and it still feels fresh. And that is simply because I never entered the stage of administration, whereas he would make