Built on top of the new Amager Resource Centre, Copenhill replaced the existing 50 year old plant, in 2017. An innovative outdoor recreation center was designed by the architectural firm BIG and was opened in the fall of 2019. Copenhill is a multi-use complex offering: skiing, sledding, hiking, running trails, as well as food and dining options. Since it is located at the highest point in the city, the rooftop offers extravagant views of the harbor and surroundings, while the giant chimney can be seen reaching far into the sky above.
The project, the result of a competition launched in 2010 and won in 2011, already renamed "Copenhill" by the citizens, rises in place of the previous waste-to-energy plant, proposing a plant with an innovative architecture and at the forefront from the point of view of efficiency and environmental impact.
The waste-to-energy plant, in fact, thanks to its considerable size (200 meters long, 60 wide and 90 high) hosts several functions that can make it an important territorial attraction such as a ski center with three ski slopes of different difficulty and two ski lifts, a cafeteria, panoramic terraces and the highest climbing wall in the world (86 meters high by 10 meters wide).
In addition, to complete the intervention on the roof there is also an innovative garden created by the Danish studio SLA that reproduces an alpine environment.
The theme of sustainability and innovation also invests the structure, characterized externally by a coating of metal panels of different shapes and sizes, designed not only to regulate the natural lighting inside but also to support the roof garden and collect rainwater that will be reused for irrigation.
The project is in line with the Danish capital’s sustainable development plan, approved in 2012, which aims to make Copenhagen "CO2 neutral" by 2025 through the implementation of a series of strategies including sustainable mobility and energy consumption that can also improve the quality of life of the population.
