Cyliner House near Lyon,France

January 1,2014 by Rinko | 55 comments

Power plant and ski slope in one , aiming to fund the ongoing research and prototyping of the "steam ring generator" designed to crown the firm's Waste-to-Energy power plant in Copenhagen. The campaign was announced on Friday and picked up a lot of steam (pun intended) in the design press - but at ArchDaily we were hesitant to publish news of the campaign because, in short, it led us into a minefield of questions about the role of invention, public engagement, and money in architecture.

Of course, BIG are far from the first to attempt to crowdfund an architectural project. Previous projects however have generally focused on otherwise-unfundable proposals for the public good, barely-sane moonshots or complex investment structures which depending on your viewpoint may or may not even count as crowdfunding. BIG are perhaps the first example of an established architectural firm attempting to crowdfund the design of a project that is already half-built, causing some people - ArchDaily staff included - to ask: "Why wasn't this money included in the project's budget?"

"Because the power plant is publicly owned, they can’t spend money on art, so we have to seed fund the generator ourselves.
Bjarke Ingels

But is this a reasonable excuse for shifting the responsibility of funding part of the design onto the architect? Why can't the power plant spend public money on art, if that art is designed to convey an important message to the public.