Tall & Urban News

Eight years in the making, Bjarke Ingels Group’s improbable ski slope of a power plant, Amager Bakke Waste-to-Energy Plant, is now open and ready for all kinds of business.

The 44,132-square-foot (4,100-square-meter) project is a many-things-in-one facility—part waste-to-energy power plant, part recreation center, part educational center. But it’s perhaps best known for one thing: a 1,300-foot (396-meter) ski slope that runs down the roof of the slanted building.

BIG worked with a handful of contractors – SLA, AKTII, Lüchinger+Meyer, MOE, and Rambøll – on the fantastical power plant design, which rises from the ground like a gleaming hill. A green hiking path wraps around the building and leads from the ground level to the roof, where a park includes rockscapes, 7,000 bushes, and 300 trees. The building’s façade has also been turned into a 279-foot (85-meter) climbing wall.

The functioning power plant on the inside can convert 440,000 tons (399,000 metric tons) of waste into clean energy annually, which will help Copenhagen reach its goal of becoming a carbon-neutral city. As BIG’s founder and creative director, Bjarke Ingels aptly puts it, the building is an example of “hedonistic sustainability.”

He says, “A sustainable city is not only better for the environment—it is also more enjoyable for the lives of its citizens.”

For more on this story go to Curbed.