There’s a reason the Bjarke Ingels Group goes by the nickname BIG and it goes much deeper than an acronym. The hottest architects inside and outside the ski world work on a BIG scale. Now, they’ve landed in Park City, Utah.

BIG has just won an international design contest to create a new, iconic home for the Kimball Art Center, a 35-year-old nonprofit (home to the Sundance House during the film festival each January) in the heart of the old mining town cum mega ski resort.

Readers of SnoCountry.com may recall a holiday story we ran about BIG being awarded the contract to create an entire ski village in a Lapland resort where the slopes descend from the rooftops. BIG’s Copenhagen project (where the company is based) is creating a ski resort atop a waste collection plant. 

The Kimball project, Ingel’s first in a U.S. ski resort, is to build a truly iconic, 80-foot high tower by stacking former railway planks at a slight spiral so that the entire structure will appear to change directions about midway up. A restaurant will operate on the lobby floor, while a cantilevered wooden staircase will lead visitors to the white-cubed gallery floors above. A sunken theater will host dance performances and a sculpture park will be placed on a grassy rooftop terrace.

Ingels said his inspiration for the design was rooted in Park City’s mining history. Local silver miners built an 80-foot wooden storage depot in the center of town known as the Silver King Coalition Mine Building. A fire engulfed it 30 years ago. The new Kimball Art Center will sit just three blocks away from where the Coalition building once stood, and will echo its height and use of wooden materials.The Kimball Art Center is currently located in a former garage that will be incorporated into the new design.

Robin Marrouche, Kimball’s executive director said, “BIG built the strongest case for the continuity of Park City’s history – a bold poetic new trademark to resurrect the spirit of the Coalition Mine Building that burned down in the 1980s. The design concept supports our mission to present engaging exhibitions, education, and events, and enhances the natural flow between the three in a uniquely free-form way,” she said. The building is expected to cost $10 million-plus, with construction to begin in spring 2013.

“The raw charm of Park City and the Kimball Art Center is rooted in a culture of appropriating the structures of past industry to accommodate spaces for cultural life and leisure,” Ingels said. “The plumes of smoke from the chimney have turned into clouds of snow from the snow cannons. The old garage is now an art museum. With our design for the new Kimball, we seek to continue this tradition by using the construction techniques of the old mines and the railroad trestles that have marinated for years in the Great Salt Lake.”

Ingels said the new Kimball will be “a beacon for Park City today as a home for an exploding cultural life and sprawling creative community.”

What It Means: There’s a reason BIG keeps getting chosen to create dramatic, exciting ski spaces and it probably goes right back to this: Ingels told the Wall Street Journal last week he plans to visit the Park City site often. “I really love to ski.”

Photo: Courtesy Bjarke Ingels Group