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Amager Bakke
Amager Bakke is an innovative waste-to-energy plant which provides a third of Copenhagen’s heating by burning the city’s rubbish. As well as good looks – it won Building of the Year at the 2021 World Architecture Festival – this giant power plant also boasts a year-round artificial ski slope, a climbing wall and a hiking trail, providing a much-needed outlet for fans of mountain sports in this particularly flat part of the world. The plant has the capacity to burn 440,000 tonnes of waste per year, eliminating the methane which would have been released in landfill. It’s the product of a collaboration between architects BIG and a consortium of five city authorities.
“A power plant doesn’t have to be an ugly box that blocks the views or casts shadows on its neighbours. It can actually be, maybe, the most popular park in the city” – Bjarke Ingels, lead architect