Copenhill: Turning a power plant into the beckrock for social life

Copenhill

TURNING A POWER PLANT INTO THE BEDROCK FOR SOCIAL LIFE

Size: Waste-to-energy plant: 41,000m 2 Ski slope: 9,000m 2 Green roof: 10,000m 2 Nature Park: 3,000m 2 Completed: 2019 Name: Copenhill / Amager Bakke Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

The iconic waste-to-energy plant ‘Copenhill’ has officially opened to the public in Copenhagen, Denmark. Designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and landscape architecture firm SLA, the project –also known as ‘Amager Bakke’ –is a waste-to-energy plant with an urban recreation centre comprising a lush nature park, ski slope, hiking trail, the world’s tallest climbing wall as well as an environmental education hub.

Copenhill is a 41,000m 2 waste-to-energy plant that turns social infrastructure into an architectural landmark with new nature activities and high biodiversity. BIG won the international competition in 2010, broke ground in 2013, and has been developed in collaboration with SLA, AKT, Dr. Lüchinger+Mayer, Man Made Land, MOE, Rambøll, Realities:United and Topotek 1.

"We are very proud to have built the most energy efficient waste-to-energy plant in the world. At the same time the plant delivers the best environmental performance with hardly any environmental emissions enameling us to have neighbours only 200 metres away and to be located less than two kilometres from the Queen's residence. Last but not least, we have succeeded in building the safest waste-to-energy plant so that local citizens and guests from all over the world can ski on the roof," says Jacob Simonsen, managing director of ARC.

Copenhill is conceived as a public infrastructure with intended social side-effects from day one. Replacing the adjacent 50-year-old Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC), Copenhill’s new waste incinerating 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 new nature activities such as skiing, hiking, rock climbing and a nature park.

"Copenhill is a blatant architectural expression of something that would otherwise have remained invisible. 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. It is a crystal clear example of hedonistic sustainability – a sustainable city is not only better for the environment, it is also more enjoyable for the lives of its citizens," explains Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG. The internal volumes of the waste-to-energy plant are determined by the precise positioning and organisation of its machinery in height order, creating an efficient, sloping rooftop fit for a 9,000 m 2 ski terrain. At the top, experts can glide down the artificial ski slope with the same length as an Olympic half-pipe, test the freestyle park or try the timed slalom course, while beginners and kids practise on the lower slopes. Skiers ascend the park from the platter lifts, carpet lifts or glass elevator for a glimpse inside the 24-hour operations of a waste-to-energy-plant.

"We wanted to do more than just create a beautiful skin around the factory. We wanted to add functionality. Instead of considering the Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) as an isolated object, we mobilise the architecture and intensify the relationship between the building and the city, expanding the existing activities in the area by turning the roof of the new ARC into a ski slope for the citizens of Copenhagen. By proposing a new breed of waste-to-energy plant that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable, the facility becomes part of the city and redefines the relationship between production and recreation, energy infrastructure and social infrastructure, and factory and city," says David Zahle, partner for BIG.

Recreation buffs and visitors reaching the summit of Copenhill will feel the novelty of a mountain in an otherwise flat country. Nonskiers can enjoy the roof bar, cross-fit area, climbing wall or highest viewing plateau in the city before descending the 490 metre treelined hiking and running trail within a lush, mountainous nature park and terrain, designed by Danish nature designers and landscape architects SLA. Meanwhile, the 10,000m 2 green roof addresses the challenging micro-climate, the 80+ metre high roof park, rewilding a

biodiverse landscape while absorbing heat, removing air particles and minimising stormwater runoff.

"Copenhill’s nature roof park and hiking trail invites locals and visitors to traverse a mountainous landscape of plants, rockscapes, 7,000 bushes and 300 pine and willow trees atop the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy plant. It also acts as a generous ‘green gift’ that will radically green-up the adjacent industrial area. Copenhill becomes the home for birds, bees, butterflies and flowers, creating a vibrant green pocket and forming a completely new urban ecosystem for the city of Copenhagen," says Rasmus Astrup, partner and design principal for SLA.

Creating a nature-filled and green activity park on top of an 88 metre-tall waste-to-energy plant is something that has never been realised before. The (up to) 45 degrees steep slope of the roof poses great requirements for plant and landscape design, and the complicated wind and weather conditions create difficult living conditions for trees and plants. The heat from the large energy boilers under the roof has had to be handled to solve the many challenges of the project, so SLA has devised several nature-based design solutions and tested different types of vegetation and materials.

The different types of habitat are specially selected to meet the nature park's challenging living conditions and to provide optimal microclimate and wind conditions for the visitors on the roof. The result is a wild, lush and hardy nature design that allows for the use of the roof park year-round, while creating a sensuousness and varied environment for all nature activities on the hill.

Beneath the slopes and nature roof park, whirring furnaces, steam, and turbines convert 440,000 tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to deliver electricity and district heating for 100,000 homes. The necessities of the power plant to complete this task, from ventilation shafts to air intakes, help create the varied topography of a mountain; a man-made landscape created in the encounter between the needs from below and the desires from above. Ten floors of administrative space are occupied by the ARC team, including a 600m 2 education centre for academic tours, workshops and sustainability conferences.

Rather than consider ARC as an isolated architectural object, the building envelope is conceived as an opportunity for the local context while forming a destination and a reflection on the progressive vision of the company. Copenhill’s continuous façade comprises 1.2 metre-tall and 3.3 metre-wide aluminum bricks stacked like

Illustration by SLA

Photography by Ehrhorn Hummerston

gigantic bricks overlapping with each other. Inbetween, glazed windows allow daylight to reach deep inside the facility, while larger openings on the southwest façade illuminate workstations on the administrative floors. On the longest vertical façade, an 85 metre climbing wall is installed to be the tallest artificial climbing wall in the world for new world records to be broken with views inside the factory.

"To me Copenhill is a perfect example of the world changing the power of architecture. We have the power to give form to the future that we want to live in. My son turns one next month – he won’t ever remember that there was a time when you couldn’t ski on the roof of the power plant or climb its façades. He will take that for granted, and so will his entire generation. Clean energy and skiable power plants is going be the baseline of their imagination, the platform from which they will leap and propose new and wild ideas for their future.

"Standing at the peak of this humanmade mountain that we have spent the last decade creating makes me curious and excited to see what ideas this summit may spark in the minds of future generations," explains Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG.

MEET THE TEAM

Client:

Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) and Fonden Amager Bakke

Area:

41,000m 2 building and 3,000m 2 nature park

Architect:

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Landscape architect:

At the bottom of the ski slope, a 600m 2 après-ski bar welcomes locals and visitors to wind down once the boots are off.

Formerly a piece of infrastructure in an industrial zone, Copenhill becomes the new green destination for families, friends and celebration, one that is economically, environmentally and socially profitable.

SLA

Bjarke Ingels Group: Partners in charge:

Bjarke Ingels, David Zahle, Jakob Lange and Brian Yang

Project leaders:

Jesper Boye Andersen, Nanna Gyldholm Møller and Claus Hermansen

SLA: Partner in charge:

Rasmus Astrup

Project leader:

Rasmus Grandelag

Photography by Laurian Ghinitoiu