Sunday Smile: You Can Now Climb, Hike & Ski an Incinerator

[EDITOR’S NOTE: My apologies for being late in getting this posted. I wasted an entire afternoon watching my Chiefs bungle their way to defeat by the Titans. There’s four-plus wasted hours I’ll never get back.  (Of course, I wouldn’t get them back even if I hadn’t watched the Chiefs.)  One bright spot is QB Mahomes looked good.]

Just a little over a month ago, the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy power plant opened in Copenhagen, Denmark. The plant, known as Copenhill (official name is Amager Bakke) can convert 440,000 tons of waste into clean energy annually – that’s enough to provide heating for 150,000 homes annually and low-carbon electricity for 550,000 people.

But what’s unique about the power plant is that it was designed to double as a public structure that will provide a 490-meter (1,600-foot) long hiking and running trails through lush gardens to the top of the 90-meter (295-foot) tall building. Additionally it boasts the world’s tallest man-made climbing wall at 85-meters. And it’s topped off by a year-round 400-meter (1,300-foot) long ski slope from the top to the bottom. The run will provide difficulties ranging from expert through intermediate to beginner level sections.

But you don’t have to be a fitness buff to enjoy the rooftop bar, restaurant or the 600-square-meter (6,450 square-feet) conference and education center.

The design for the building won an international design contest in 2011, but groundbreaking didn’t occur until two years later. The façade it made of large aluminum blocks stacked like alternating bricks. The openings between the bricks are glazed to allow light to cascade into the interior, minimizing the need for artificial lighting. And the aluminum bricks also serve as planters, so that eventually it will be a green wall.

 

The machinery used to convert the 440,000 tons of waste is arranged by height creating the sloped roof and 9,000 meter-squared (96,875 square-feet) ski terrain.  Access to the top with its spectacular vistas of the city and waterfront is provided by a glass elevator that looks to the interior.

 

Besides being the tallest and biggest structure in Copenhagen, the 41,000 square-meter (441,300 square-feet) plant was designed to help the city meet its goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2025. Undoubtedly its award-winning design of converting waste to energy, harvesting rainwater and serving as one of the city’s main social centers by providing hiking trails, climbing walls and a year-round ski slope will help in that goal.

I believe the winning architectural firm of BIG succeeded in adding multiple-functionality to an industrial facility that one would not inherently think of as attractive.  But let’s see that ski slope in spectacular action courtesy of Olympic skier, Jesper Tjäder: