"This is a show/book about architecture. Architecture is the art and science of accommodating the lives we want to live. Setting the stage for our life. It is the craft of designing and building the world that we want to inhabit. Our cities and buildings aren't givens—they are the way they are because that is as far as we have gotten to date. They are the best efforts of our ancestors and fellow planetizens, and if they have shortcomings—it is up to us to continue that effort, pick up where they left off—and create the world we want to see for ourselves and our children." - Bjarke Ingels

While typical architecture publications aim to showcase nothing but beautifully photographed architecture, this book take readers on a journey from the Arabian desert to the Finnish tundra on an odyssey of architectural adaptation. Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director at BIG becomes a personal tour-guide and narrator. The book is a documentation of Bjarke's thought process from the first sketch to the final completed building, from stalled plans to completed and lively projects and is a way to share his unorthodox approach, methods, and process to peers, students, and the likeminded. Great architecture merges innovations in materials and technology with form, emotion, and aesthetics.

Bjarke Ingels received his architecture diploma in 1998 and after three years at OMA, he cofounded PLOT Architects. In 2005, he started BIG—Bjarke Ingels Group—and through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, he has created an international reputation as a member of a new generation of architects combining pragmatism, shrewd analysis, playful experimentation, social responsibility, and humor. He has received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and the ULI Award for Excellence. Recently, he was rated as one of the one-hundred most creative people in business by New York-based Fast Company magazine. In 2009, he spoke at the TED Global Conference in Oxford and since 2005, he has been a visiting professor at Rice University's School of Architecture; Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation; and Harvard University, where he teaches a joint studio with the business school and the Graduate School of Design.