Amager Bakke
Copenhill Rooftop Park
Turning technical infrastructure into a social, sustainable and biodiverse asset for the entire City of Copenhagen.
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Size
35,000 m2 nature park
Year
2016 — 2019
Client
Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) and Fonden Amager Bakke
Role
Full service landscape architecture
Partners & Collaborators
BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group, MOE, Malmos A/S
Awards
2021 WAF Award - 'World Building of the Year', 2021 IOC, IPC & IAKS's gold medal, 2020 Scandinavian Green Roof Award, 2020 ArchDaily Building of the Year, 2020 Design That Educates Award, 2019 EcoTechGreen Award - 'Green Infrastructure’
Challenges
SLA’s design of a green rooftop park for Copenhagen’s new waste-to-energy plant combines hiking trails, playgrounds, vantage points, climbing walls and street fitness – along with a 500+ meter ski slope. All of it designed within a wild and sensuous mountain nature with plants, rockscapes, 7000 bushes and 300 trees.
The experimenting use of the steep pitched roof places high demands on the plant and landscape design. With SLA’s solution, the challenges have been solved through a range of nature-based design solutions and 1:1 tests of vegetation and materials. The planting is specially chosen to meet the challenging living conditions and create optimal micro-climate and wind conditions.
The result is a lush, biodiverse, and robust nature design that provides the visitors with the opportunity to use the park all year round and a sensuous and varied environment for all the activities of the park.
“Amager Bakke acts as a generous ‘green bomb’ that will radically green-up the adjacent industrial area. Copenhill Rooftop Park becomes the home for birds, bees, butterflies and flowers, creating a vibrant green pocket and forming a completely new urban ecosystem for the city of Copenhagen.”
— Rasmus Astrup, Partner & Design Principal, SLA.
Awards received for the project
2020 Design That Educates Award in the category ‘Architectural Design’
2020 ArchDaily Building of the Year Award
2019 EcoTechGreen Award in the category ‘Green Technology and Green Infrastructure’
2019 Scandinavian Green Roof Award
Creating innovative green roofs is a service we have developed over the last 10 years in SLA. SLA was also the recipient of The Scandinavian Green Roof Award in 2017 for SUND Nature Park/The Panum Institute, in 2016 for Egedal City Hall, and in 2014 for Novo Nordisk Landscape Park.
