Fast Company’s motivates BIG’s placements as follows:

For bringing starchitecture to the drab world of storm resilience. Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), a firm that once proposed and built a ski slope on top of a waste-treatment plant, continues to devise playful ways to solve serious problems. BIG's winning proposal for Rebuild by Design, a design competition launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, marries extravagant design to pragmatic storm protection. This is not your average flood wall: The 10-mile loop of parks and community spaces is designed to shield Lower Manhattan from devastating floods, but during calmer times, the berms become places for people to sunbathe, socialize, and even garden. An artist-decorated flood wall placed under FDR Drive, a highway along the eastern shore of Manhattan, folds up when not in use to create an esplanade that will house a winter market.

And about C.F. Møller Architects, Fast Company writes:

For rethinking high-rise living. Urban areas are growing faster than ever, and the World Health Organization (WHO) projects that six out of every 10 people on Earth are expected to live in a city by 2030. For the majority of us, the future, by necessity, will be vertical. C.F. Møller is rethinking not only how we build residential towers, but how we use them. The firm is currently in the planning process for the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper. The 34-story Stockholm residence promises to be both cheaper and more sustainable than steel and concrete alternatives—one reason the U.S. government invested $1 million in a wooden skyscraper competition last year. C.F. Møller is also solving residential skyscrapers’ other weakness: social isolation. For a 24-story Antwerp tower, the architects grouped apartments in mini communities of similar residents, like families and students. Ample communal space, including a communal dining area, balcony space, and winter gardens, ensures people have plenty of reasons to bump into each other.

The list is topped by Adi Tatarko´s and Alon Cohen´s Houzz (USA).