BIG is a Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, and Shenzhen-based group of architects, designers, builders, and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, interior design, landscape design, product design, research and development. The office is currently involved in a large number of projects throughout Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. Not least due to the influence from multicultural exchange, global economical flows and communication technologies that all together require new ways of architectural and urban organization. We believe that in order to deal with today’s challenges, architecture can profitably move into a field that has been largely unexplored. A pragmatic utopian architecture that steers clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring boxes and the naïve utopian ideas of digital formalism. Like a form of programmatic alchemy we create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking and shopping. By hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, we architects once again find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to better fit contemporary life forms. BIG is committed to supporting its new parents and their families, and is a proud member of Pledge Parental Leave. While on leave, BIGsters will continue to receive all employee benefits previously provided including health insurance and will remain eligible for salary increases and bonuses, as well as 52 weeks of job security. We offer 18 weeks of total paid leave in addition to accrued vacation to extend the paid leave for primary caregivers, and 4 weeks paid leave for secondary caregivers.