Turning a power plant into the bedrock for social life

Designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, SLA, AKT, Lüchinger+Meyer, MOE and Rambøll, CopenHill opens as a new breed of waste-to-energy plant topped with a ski slope, hiking trail and climbing wall, embodying the notion of hedonistic sustainability while aligning with Copenhagen’s goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2025.

CopenHill, also known as Amager Bakke, is a 41,000m2 waste-to-energy plant with an urban recreation center and environmental education hub, turning social infrastructure into an architectural landmark. BIG’s year-round ski plant won the international competition in 2011 and broke ground in 2013. As Denmark’s single largest waste initiative to date, Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen officiated the first run of the slopes, commencing opening festivities from sports competitions to charity walks supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. CopenHill is inaugurated ahead of the C40 Mayors Summit hosted in Copenhagen this year, a landmark gathering of 96 member cities committed to bold action on climate change.

 

CopenHill is conceived as a public infrastructure with intended social side-effects from day one. Replacing the adjacent 50-year old waste-to-energy plant with Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC), CopenHill’s new waste-to-energy facilities integrate the latest technologies in waste treatment and energy production. Due to its location on the industrial waterfront of Amager, where raw industrial facilities have become the site for extreme sports from wakeboarding to go-kart racing, the new power plant adds skiing, hiking and rock climbing to thrill seekers’ wish lists.

“CopenHill is a blatant architectural expression of something that would otherwise have remained invisible: that it is the cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world. As a power plant, CopenHill is so clean that we have been able to turn its building mass into the bedrock of the social life of the city – its façade is climbable, its roof is hikeable and its slopes are skiable. A crystal clear example of Hedonistic Sustainability – that a sustainable city is not only better for the environment – it is also more enjoyable for the lives of its citizens.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG