Denmark may be famous for many innovations – Lego, hygge, Noma restaurant – but skiing is not one of the things that springs to mind when you think of this fairly flat and not particularly snowy country.
There is one short natural slope – at Roskilde, west of Copenhagen – that sometimes has enough snow for skiing – but from next year locals and visitors will be able to get their downhill kicks closer to the capital.
The unlikely location for a new year-round ski track is the sloping roof of a state-of-the-art green power plant. When planning to build the Amager Bakke waste-to-power incinerator plant, as part of an aim to become the world’s first zero-carbon city by 2025, the Danes decided to move away from the usual monolithic, industrial look. Instead, they sought to make the publicly owned facility an attraction in its own right – clad in shiny aluminium, surrounded by parkland, and with one of the world’s longest artificial ski slopes on its roof.
The vital numbers for skiers are that there will be a 440-metre-long slope offering four levels of difficulty: easy and moderate runs plus a 180-metre black run pitching at up to 45%. The top of the ski runs will be accessed by elevators running up through the interior of the plant.
The plant itself is expected to burn 400,000 tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to power 60,000 homes, as well as communal heating plants, with pure water the waste product. Construction work began in 2013 and the facility will come on line on 1 December, while the ski slope is set to open next year.
The slope concept comes from Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group (Big), which has made a name for itself with revolutionary architectural concepts around the world. It is working with Thomas Heatherwick – designer of the 2012 Olympic cauldron – on Google’s new £1bn headquarters at Kings Cross, London. The firm originally envisaged the plant blowing a giant smoke ring from the summit to symbolise the conversion of waste to clean power.
“Big is still working on the smoke rings; it is not clear yet if it has a viable solution or not, but we’re crossing our fingers,” said Patrik Gustavsson, the man charged with bringing skiing to Copenhagen.
Another issue to iron out is safety. It’s an 86-metre vertical drop from the top of the power plant to the ground, so, as with a mountain cliff, precautions must be made to ensure skiers don’t accidentally slide over the edge. “We’re working with some of the world’s most renowned ski security experts to ensure that it is as safe to go skiing here as anywhere else,” said Gustavsson. “One possibility is using nets as safety devices.”
• a-r-c.dk/amager-bakke
