The firm created the model for the Lego House in Billund, Denmark, with—what else?—Lego blocks. The building, conceived as a "hands-on, minds-on experience center," is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

The twisting shape of the Vancouver House building, expected to be built in that city by 2018, was dictated by setback requirements.

The firm's design for Zootopia, a zoo in Givskud, Denmark, seeks to "integrate and hide" buildings in the landscape.

The Big U is the firm’s ambitious plan to protect Manhattan from a Sandy-like hurricane by ringing the lower half of the island with 10-foot, sculptural berms.

West 57th, a pyramid-shaped residential tower now taking place on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan, is the firm's first major project in New York City.

The Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen consists of apartments arranged in the shape of an artificial mountainside atop a parking garage.

The BIG proposal would lower the outer ring wall of the curved Hirshhorn Museum, designed by Gordon Bunschaft, to improve accessibility.

One of the key goals of the open corner entrances and structural renovations is to bring more natural light to bear on the nation's art treasures via skylights, as pictured here in the National Museum of African Art. The project will also expand total gallery space by roughly 30 percent.

A view of the enhanced south campus, presenting a vision of a more integrated square. The renovation's estimated price tag, $2 billion, would be paid by a combination of federal funds and private donations.

The plan also calls for a more visible entrance to the interactive Ripley education center, to help draw more crowds to the underground exhibit.

Designed with visitors' needs in mind, the overall renovation plan would actually excavate underneath the Smithsonian Castle—made from red sandstone bricks and finished in 1855—by suspending the structure via a process called base isolation. This would allow for the creation of the underground space depicted above.

A view from the National Mall west of the Smithsonian. The plan, which may take up to two decades to finish, would still need approval from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts.

A view of the new entrance to the National Museum of African Art, showing how the raised corner entrance would alter the landscape. Part of the idea is to let the expanded entrances and skylight systems serves as preludes and sneak peeks at the ongoing exhibitions.

This illuminated evening view shows how the proposed raised entryways for the Sackler Gallery and the National Museum of African Art would slightly bend and contort the Haupt Garden, creating a sort of tabbed topography.

8 House, Apartment Building, Copenhagen, 2009, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group of Denmark. Photo by Ty Stange.

Hualien Wellness & Residential Development by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Copenhagen's future waste to energy plant designed by Bjarke Ingels.

Configur8 tiles provide distinctive cladding for the exterior of this modern home.

Waechter Architecture reimagined a traditional gabled home in southeast Portland without significantly altering the original building. A simple coat of red paint abstracts the century-old structure, creating a residential work of art.

The clients and design team chose to forego an open floor plan in favor of defined, separated spaces. In this scheme, the vertically oriented spaces act as a cinematic "hard-cut" to their horizontal counterparts. The custom hot rolled steel kitchen, one of these vertical transition spaces, receives light from above through a Velux skylight. A GE Profile Induction cooktop and oven and Miele refrigerator complete the space.

House O, designed by Jun Igarashi, forgoes hallways and interior doors in favor of casually interconnected rooms.

Marcus Lee and Rachel Hart’s wonderful wooden home sits at the end of a quiet London lane and politely turns its back on the workshops next door.

Corporate high-flyers and admitted neat freaks Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton couldn’t handle the chaos anymore. Read more about this Victorian terrace in London here.

“In this house, the roof is the only facade—the rest is dissolved beneath it.” —Architect Aljoša Dekleva

At the entry looking upward towards a Velux skylight, a vertical "sleeve" is made of stacked end grain plywood. The theme of vertical and horizontal architectural elements providing different environmental perspectives carries through to the rest of the home. Horizontal forms look out to the lake, while the vertical columns look up the sky.

Seen in the architectural context of its London neighborhood, the house is all the more extraordinary: compact, materially innovative, and easy on the eyes.

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, author Chris Brown and his dog Katsu head to the river; the path was once a dumping ground on top of a long-defunct underground oil pipeline. The green roof was conceptualized by John Hart Asher of the Ecosystem Design Group at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.

Bjarke Ingels calls the hollow space at the center of the building an "urban room,

Completed in 2008, the Hill House by Bjarke Ingels Group features a distinctive

Like the rest of Ørestad, Bjarke Ingels Group’s 8 House is far outside of central Copenhagen. The southern half of the neighborhood occupies a borderland between new residential housing and a nature preserve, and between the airport and the old city.

Photo by Patrick Barta

Dortheavej Residence by Bjarke Ingels Group

This 3,200-square-foot structure was assembled with a prefabricated foundation, concrete panel siding, and efficient built-ins, minimizing construction debris and toxins—such as concrete foundation tar—on the site.

At their A. Quincy Jones house in Los Angeles, architects Cory Buckner and Nick Roberts used permeable pavers to help the soil retain moisture.

Home Renovation Tip: Get an Understanding of What’s Already Around