Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Global Partner, Bjarke Ingels Group. Photo by Marcus Mork.

This November, architects and designers will flock to Sarasota for the Sarasota Design Conference. The conference, which has taken place every two years since 1988, is themed Duality: Harmony in Contrast and will take place in St. Paul Lutheran Church, a Victor Lundy-designed campus and a sterling example of the Sarasota School of Architecture. Organized by the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the conference’s focus has always been firmly on design. Featuring lectures and a panel discussion with four prominent industry professionals, the conference intends to inspire and creatively invigorate the minds of those in attendance. Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the conference’s keynote speakers, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA, a global partner at Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, set to appear in the January 2027 issue of SRQ Magazine.

SRQ: The term “Pragmatic Utopian” is used by BIG to describe the ideals that drive its projects—how do you balance the firm’s ambition for experimentation with real-life budgets and financing?

Bergmann: Everybody’s got a budget at the end of the day. Very few people will tell you, “Just keep spending.” I think creativity truly starts when you have a budget to work within, and that you manage to get both the design ambition and the budget to work out. The proof is in the pudding. If you demonstrate that you can build and execute on the vision, then truly anything is possible. I’m always very happy that we do a lot of affordable housing work in our office, so we’re not a design architectural firm that’s purely interested in luxury housing—to create sort of artworks of housing. We’re interested in the actual nuts and bolts. How do we improve life for as many people as possible? From considering climate refugees in the South Pacific, to thinking about the development pressures on places like Bhutan, to thinking about affordable housing in our inner cities in the United States, those are all things that we put our minds to.

Sarasota Design Conference, November 12-14, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Sarasota

Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Global Partner, Bjarke Ingels Group. Photo by Marcus Mork.

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