Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have formed their own specialised BIG Engineering unit, which will be dedicated to “ensuring the structural, mechanical integrity and resilience of BIG buildings globally.”

Duncan Horswill, the former chief operating officer of Copenhagen company Søren Jensen Engineers, has been hired to lead the new team.

Studio founder Bjarke Ingels said the move would allow the practice to “stretch the boundaries of the physical, financial, regulatory and environmental limits of design.”

“At BIG we practice knowledge-driven design,” he said. “We have been fortunate to work with some of the best urbanists, landscapers, sociologists, artists and engineers in the world, and will continue to do so.

“[But] we need to surround ourselves with the best experts in the fields outside our own expertise in architecture, and bring them in-house. As we started onboarding our own engineers, we have learned how much more impactful our design thinking can be when the expertise resides internally.

“Having engineers join our group of architects, product designers and landscape architects is the inevitable next step towards providing the silo-shattering interdisciplinary design innovation that we want to bring to the world.”

BIG will continue to collaborate with external engineering firms, including long-time collaborators AKT, ARUP, DeSimone, Thornton Tomasetti, BuroHappold, Schlaich Bergermann Partner, Bollinger + Grohmann, Ramboll, MKA among many others.

Project’s Horswill will be involved with include the new NOMA restaurant in Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands Education Centre.

BIG has a steady stream of high-profile leisure projects in development, including a sports stadium and cultural complex in Greenland, a storm barrier and public realm in New York, a LEGO museum in Denmark and the world’s first Hyperloop network in the United Arab Emirates.

The company have recently announced that later this year they will move their 200-strong New York office from Manhattan to Dumbo in Brooklyn; signing on for a 50,000sq ft space at Two Trees’s 45 Main Street.