Cebra has designed a vision for a skidome in the city of Randers for Danski: Skidome Denmark.
This city, in the eastern Jutland landscape, is centrally placed in the country, having on numerous occasions welcomed great projects, such as Randers Regnskov and a true copy of Elvis’ home in Memphis, Graceland. the basic idea of Skidome Denmark is to share and pass on the joy of skiing to the Danes by bringing a piece of the Alps to Denmark. the proposal offers over 3 km of indoor and outdoor slopes and a freestyle park as well as a hotel, a restaurant and shops on an area of 1.076.000 sq.ft.
The structure consists of three arches, which resemble the shape of a six-armed snowflake. the arches each span 700 m across the river Gudenåen and the top arch’s highest point rises 110 m over the surrounding landscape.
It is the aim of the skidome that it can be used and enjoyed by everyone – any time of the day, any time of the year. Thus, the arches’ exterior roof surfaces are an integrated part of the design equal to the interior slopes with real snow.
The top arch’s roof offers two black pistes, allowing outdoor skiing even during the summer. the middle arch is shaped like an urban playground with street sport facilities for skateboarding, Bmx etc., while the bottom arch has a green landscape roof, which like a raised city park invites to a wide range of leisure activities.
Every piste has its own chair lift and the three arches are conjoint by an elevator for transporting skiers between the different levels. in order to ensure variation in the landscape over time, it is possible to transform the pistes’ topography, providing visitors with a different experience each time they visit the ski dome. Skidome Denmark is developed with environmental issues in mind.
Cooling of the dome requires large amounts of energy, which the dome obtains from two sources of sustainable energy: ground heating and solar cells. As well as being close to the town of Randers, Skidome Denmark is surrounded by a large natural resort. This is an invaluable source of energy, because it can be used to produce ground heating.
Also the ski dome has an advantage, when it comes to solar cells, in that it needs the energy mostly during the summer, when there is most of it. During winter, when cooling is less of an issue, Skidome Denmark will donate excess heat to their humid neighbor and little brother, Randers Regnskov (The tropical Rainforest).
Skidome Denmark brings, quite literally, a piece of the Alps to Denmark: the slopes are developed in association with Alpe d’Huez ski resort in France, and the gradients are copied directly from the most popular pistes.
Location: Randers, DenmarkArchitect: CEBRA Area: 100,000 m2Max. capacity: 3,000 guestsClient: Danski