Waste Mountain in Copenhagen by BIG

From Copenhagen, a permanently sustainable and clean ski area was soon to emerge. This scenario was proposed by the Danish office BIG, which, together with realities:united and German landscape architects Topotek 1 and Man Made Land, won in mid-January an international competition to redesign a waste dump in Copenhagen. The jury unanimously chose a special hybrid that beat other proposals from Dominique Perrault, 3XN, Lundgaard & Tranberg, and Wilkinson Eyre.
The competition was organized by the energy company Amagerforbrænding, whose director emphasized that the winning project could be a nice and useful contribution to the city's development and become a new symbol of Copenhagen. The architectural team does not see the building merely as an isolated object but creates a surprising vision for this special and negatively perceived waste incinerator. The new structure is to be integrated with the existing infrastructure and also used for recreational activities. The power plant's roof, spanning 31,000 m², is to serve the residents and visitors of Copenhagen as a ski area with slopes of varying difficulty. The project, titled “Hedonistic Sustainability,” aims to transform the industrial building into a green mountain. A series of walking paths is designed to connect the facility with the adjacent park and neighboring residential area. Another peculiarity is the responsibility of the Berlin creative studio realities:united, which proposed a chimney reminiscent of a thick caterpillar named Absalom from the book Alice in Wonderland, smoking a water pipe and releasing circular clouds. The realities:united project aims to release similar playful formations into Copenhagen's sky and transform the dirty message of industrial chimneys into a positive message that cares for the sustainability of the natural cycle.