Groove Theory #7 - Hedonistic Sustainability

Copenhagen, 2006. A young architect with wild hair and wilder ideas starts a firm with a simple manifesto: "Yes is More."

Most architecture firms chose a singular lane - serious or playful, sustainable or spectacular, local or global. Bjarke Ingels decided to choose the whole lot.

Today, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) designs everything from floating cities to ski slopes that double as power plants. They've built museums that look like mountains and apartment buildings with parks on every floor.

But here's what's interesting: as they scaled from 5 people to 700+, they didn't get more rigid. They got more adaptive.

The secret? BIG designed their structure not to eliminate contradictions, but to handle them.

The Tension

Most organisations (and humans, for that matter) try to resolve tension quickly. Pick a strategy. Choose your market. Define your role. Eliminate ambiguity.

We default to 'yes, but': we'd love to do both, but we need to focus. Pick a lane. Choose your battles.

But what if the most creative work happens when you apply improv's golden rule of “Yes, and…" to business strategy?

Step Into It

Your practice has just hit a new revenue high. Three different client types love your work - but for completely different reasons. Your advisor says pick one, double down, become known for something specific. But your best innovations happen at the intersections. Do you specialise… or design for contradiction?

The Groove: Structure

Structure → Shape the idea

Bjarke Ingels has turned contradiction into competitive advantage. His philosophy of "hedonistic sustainability" deliberately holds two opposing forces: environmental responsibility and human pleasure.

Instead of choosing between them, BIG designs buildings that make sustainability enjoyable. The Copenhagen waste-to-energy plant? It has a ski slope on the roof. The Via 57 West apartment building in NYC? It's shaped like a pyramid so every unit gets light and views.

"We try to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous circle," Bjarke explains. "Instead of making sustainability about sacrifice, we make it about enhancement."

But flipping these particularly v-signs required operational genius to match the creative vision.

Enter Sheela Maini Søgaard. While Bjarke was the visionary face of BIG, Sheela was building the engine. As CEO, she recognised something most creative firms miss: you can't scale radical creativity without equally radical operations.

The BIG leadership split:

• Bjarke drove vision - the big ideas, the impossible briefs, the "what if we put a ski slope on a power plant?" moments
• Sheela scaled the engine - finance, people systems, global coordination, making the impossible actually possible

But here's what makes it work: they didn't just divide and conquer. They designed adaptive leadership at every level.

"We scale without standardising," Sheela explains. "We built trust and experimentation into the structure itself."

This isn't traditional hierarchy. Project teams operate with shared responsibility - architects, urbanists, engineers, and sustainability experts co-lead initiatives. Leadership adapts to each project rather than projects adapting to fixed leadership.

This is 'yes, and' at organisational scale. In improv, you accept what your scene partner gives you AND build on it. BIG accepts impossible briefs AND finds ways to make them work.

Structure is one of the five elements of Groove Theory. Learn more >

The Release

Structure isn't about eliminating chaos - it's about designing systems that can handle complexity and contradiction.

BIG proves that you can scale radical creativity without losing agility. The secret isn't choosing between opposing forces - it's building structures that harness the tension between them.

The next time someone tells you to pick a lane, trying asking yourself: How could I design a structure that uses both?

I learned this the hard way. Early at Wavetable, clients would ask: 'Are you consultants, designers or educators?' I kept trying to pick one. Then I realised our best projects happened when I stopped choosing.

And at our co-location in Mexico City earlier this year, we hit upon the idea of framing ourselves… more like BIG. Today, we're rocking what could be called a business mullet: architecture studio in front, game studio in the back.

Sometimes the best strategy isn't choosing - it's designing.

That's all for this time. Next up - a live comedy show where the gags get… drawn.

Howard

P.S. Ever tried saying 'yes, and' to a seemingly impossible brief? What happened…?

Extended Mix

More on BIG:

• "Yes is More" comic book manifesto (2009) - explains their philosophy in graphic novel format
• Notable contradictions resolved: The 8 House (social housing that feels luxurious), Amager Bakke (waste plant that's also recreation)
• The best book on “yes, and”? Impro by Keith Johnstone (hint: it's not really about improv...)

Cop some Copenhagen: Two spots to try in one of my favourite cities:

• Madklubben: a single location grew into Denmark's top restaurant group. Hit the Vesterbro location for the essential menu & vibes.
• Culture Box: basement venue with a superb soundsystem, spotlighting DJs’ DJs across techno, dubstep, drum&bass and beyond.