Architect of ideas

Jakob Lange, Partner at BIG, uses his passion and reMarkable’s paper tablet to bring ideas to the surface.

3 min read

No blueprints required

Jakob Lange, partner at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), has always been interested in how things are put together.

An architect by design is someone who assembles an idea into a physical structure. Jakob’s approach to work and ideas is no different. He’s an architect of ideas, assembling and testing what his team proposes to make sure that it can stand up to the creative challenge — before releasing them into the world. With reMarkable, he sketches distraction-free on a digital notebook.

“My job is to actually kind of hover a little bit… and make sure that all of these thoughts are tested and compared against each other and then we go with the best idea.”

Breakthrough thinking by constraint

Constraints can help creativity, not just hold it back. On one of their latest projects, with furniture designer BoConcept, Jakob’s team designed a sofa based on the premise of sponges tied together with rope.

This clever idea raised creative questions. How would the soft sponges look, if compressed? How would the ropes look? How would it create shapes the team could play with?

”The next step in that process was then to figure out how do you turn that language into a piece of furniture.”

Jakob sketches on reMarkable Paper Pro

Connecting your passions connects your focus

At his heart Jakob is happiest when he is doodling. Drawing is his passion, and he feels the most free and connected to his creativity when he’s sketching.

Jakob uses this to his advantage — a superpower or shortcut to connecting to his best ideas. He leans into his passion, gets fully immersed. His drawing funnels his focus and lets his best thinking happen naturally.

That’s why Jakob believes you should embrace your passions. As he puts it, when you let your ideas flow, your focus will narrow.

“When I’m sort of deeply into my projects sitting, drawing, building small models, that’s what really interests me… Then that’s when you’re the most happy.”