This striking new waste-to-energy plant, planned for the city of Copenhagen, includes a ski slope on its steeply sloping roof. The structure was designed by Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group, and was the unanimous winner of an international competition.
The ski run will be 100 meters high (330 feet). Skiers will be transported to the top of the building via an elevator, and will be able to see the interior of the plant as they ascend. The plant will have three ski runs built into its slanting roof, one of which will be of “black diamond” difficulty. Because the ski slope will be covered with artificial grass, it will be an all-year-round destination for skiers.
The plant comes at a cost of €420 million, and will be a replacement for a power plant built in the 1970s. The new plant will be completed by 2016. It will be located in an industrial part of Copenhagen, and the project aims to be “economically, environmentally and socially profitable”.
An added environmental touch is that the plant smokestack will expel a 30 meter ring of steam for each ton of CO2 the plant emits. The steam ring is meant as “a gentle reminder of the impact of consumptionâ€, and a measure of emissions visible to all Copenhageners. At night, the rings will be illuminated by heat-tracking lasers, which will project a pie-chart onto the rings that displays a quota of fossil-fuel CO2. Clever.
Here is the full proposal if you’d like a closer look. What’s your opinion of the proposed building?
Images: Bjarke Ingels Group
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