KIBISI

Background

KiBiSi is a design firm in Copenhagen, founded in 2009 by Lars Holme Larsen, Bjarke Ingels and Jens Martin Skibsted. The name comes from the three companies behind it: Kilo Design (Ki), BIG architects (Bi) and Skibsted Ideation (Si). The three had collaborated on and off for several years before they formed the company to make use of the synergy between their own firms.

Signature Style

Fritz Hansen describes the founders as sharing a fondness for the good and rigorous idea, and says the group often crossbreeds elements from different disciplines to reach untraditional, functional and aesthetic solutions. Wikipedia lists architecture, furniture, electronics, transportation, culture and lifestyle as the fields it addresses.

Notable Works

• Shanghai Chair for the Danish Pavilion at Expo 2010
• Tripart Chair, shown at the Milan furniture fair
• Headphones for AIAIAI and bicycles for Puma
• Their first lighting design, for Lightyears, with a theme drawn from films
• VIA57™ lounge chair for Fritz Hansen, made with Bjarke Ingels Group for the VIA57 WEST building in New York

Legacy

Fritz Hansen considers KiBiSi among Scandinavia's most influential design groups. Bjarke Ingels has said of the collaboration that the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk had become hard to pursue with the current production apparatus, and that working within KiBiSi lets the three move slowly in that direction.