Renovation of the Bloudek’s Giant ski jump in Planica

The complete renovation of all the ski jumps on the Alpine slopes was conditioned by two important facts. In the late 1990s, Nordic centres in Europe gradually started to transform from purely winter sports venues to year-round venues. The ski jumps and cross-country ski runs have been technologically upgraded to the extent that they can be irrigated in summer and snowed in winter, the ski run is cooled and fully iced in winter, and the high-slip ceramic surface is dampened by a special system in summer. On the other hand, the geometries of the jumps have also become more uniform, the international standard has become more prescriptive and only allows minor variations in the profiles of the different jumps.

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Before the renovation, the old Bloudek ski jumping hill was intended exclusively for winter ski jumping, its basic geometry was outdated and it had to be adapted to the FIS standard every year with copious amounts of snow. In 2001, too much snow at the top of the hill overloaded the support structure and the hill partially collapsed. For the next ten years, the great potential of the ski jumping centre in Planica was reduced to the annual World Ski Jumping Championships at the Gorišek Brothers Aerodrome in March, otherwise the centre was in a state of disrepair for the whole year.

The 2009 project competition awarded two first prizes of equal value. The Nordic Centre was designed by two project teams and renovated in several phases over a five-year period. The first phase of the renovation included a thorough reconstruction of the Bloudek Grandstand with its supporting facilities, the referee tower, the coach stand, the escalators and the old referee tower and the RTV tower. The ski jump was shrunk by about 5 metres because the old ski jump exceeded the standard for Olympic ski jumps. The previous grass skating rink was replaced by a wooden one, which allows the surface to be laminated for summer use and anchoring nets to be attached for the winter snow layer. Instead of a single ski jump, a pair of large and small Olympic ski jumps was built, with a common ski jumping area and a judging tower.

The first intervention in the comprehensive renovation of the Nordic Centre identified key design elements, materiality and relationship to the natural environment. Due to the exceptional natural location at the very entrance to the Triglav National Park, the picturesque mountain setting, the torrent crossing the centre, the scree slopes and the forest cover, the design of the sports facilities is as restrained as possible, without the detailing typical of conventional architectural works, and with an emphasis on simple geometric shapes.

The structural parts of all buildings, which define their basic geometry and are located in contact with the slope, shall be simple in design, reinforced concrete, solid and in dialogue with the rock frame. The staircase, the landing area and the two towers are designed in a similar way. Wooden “implants” are inserted into the concrete perimeter where the facilities come into contact with athletes and coaches, either as reflective fences or as heated parts of the facilities for coaches and sports officials. Additional communication routes, access routes and connections between buildings are designed in galvanised steel profiles and mesh.

The renovation preserves the biggest technological feature of the old Bloudek Giant, the structurally supported top of the ski jump. The vast majority of ski jumps have the reverse design: the structure is usually raised off the ground and supported by a landing area, while the landing area is placed in the ground. In Planica, almost the entirety of the Bloudek Giant is set “in the terrain”, with the exception of the top of the ski jump. The old wooden pillar structure was replaced by a 40-metre-long separated structure without intermediate supports.

Authors of the project: BLENKUŠ Matej, FLORIJANČIČ Miloš, KOBAL Klemen