When it comes to New York’s urban future, Bjarke Ingels may be the most important architect you have never heard of.

Until a few years ago, there was not much reason for most New Yorkers to know him. Mr. Ingels, a Dane, is only 40 years old, at the age when most architects are getting their first real assignments.

Since he opened a branch of his Copenhagen firm, BIG, in Manhattan in 2011, Mr. Ingels has received some of the city’s most prominent commissions.

His giant, soaring wedge of an apartment complex is currently under construction on West 57th Street. His firm recently won a bid to oversee the redesign of a portion of the waterfront along the East River, a series of parks and walkways that will make the region more pedestrian friendly and help to protect it from the next large hurricane.