CopenHill - Amager Bakke - at night…
“CopenHill, also known as Amager Bakke, is a power plant located on an industrial waterfront that is capable of converting 440,000 tons of waste into clean energy annually. It was designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) to double as public infrastructure, and is complete with tree-lined hiking trails and ski slopes on its roof along with the "tallest artificial climbing wall in the world" on its facade.” (1).
“Nearly a decade in the making, the landmark CopenHill waste-to-energy plant has finally opened in Copenhagen. CopenHill is the result of nearly ten years of thought, time and design. To complete the project, BIG worked with SLA, AKT, Lüchinger+Meyer, MOE and Rambøll. The plant aspires to embody the notion of Hedonistic Sustainability while aligning with Copenhagen’s goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2025. The 41,000m2 project includes an urban recreation center and environmental education hub, turning social infrastructure into an architectural landmark. Beneath the slopes, furnaces, steam, and turbines convert 440,000 tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to deliver electricity and district heating for 150,000 homes. CopenHill features a continuous façade comprised of 1.2m tall and 3.3m wide aluminum bricks stacked like gigantic bricks overlapping each other.
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.” (2).
Sources: (1) Lizzie Crook (October 2019). Dezeen. Available at www.dezeen.com/2019/10/08/big-copenhill-power-plant-ski-s...
(2) Eric Baldwin (October 2019). Arch Daily. www.archdaily.com/925966/copenhill-the-story-of-bigs-icon...