Chinese studio TeamMinus has designed a ski jump to host big air events at the 2022 Winter Olympics on the site of a former steelworks in Beijing.

Created as the first permanent venue for big air events in the world, the 60-metre-high ski jump will host the ski and snowboard big air competitions at the Olympics, which begin this week.

It will be the first time ski big air has been included in the games, following the introduction of snowboard big air at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Built in the western Shijingshan district of Beijing, the Olympic venue sits within the former Shougang Industrial Park, which was the largest steel mill in the region before it closed in 2011.

The largely steel structure designed by TeamMinus occupies a dramatic location alongside four large cooling towers on a strip of land between a former cooling lake and the Yongding River.

As the 60-metre-long structure was designed to be used for big air events rather than traditional ski jumping, it has a distinctive form.

Supported on a column that contains an elevator for the athletes to reach the top of the jump, the structure has three distinct sections.

It has a long slope, followed by a flatter central section where the takeoff ramp is located, and finally a shorter sloped landing area.

At the base of the jump, concrete stands with 2,500 permanent seats have been built around the landing area. The capacity for the Olympics was raised with additional steel stands.

The Big Air Shougang venue forms part of a plan to redevelop the former steelworks, and several other buildings were renovated for the Olympics.

The nearby Oxygen Factory complex will be used as the entrance building for spectators watching the events, while the Beijing 2022 Organising Committee moved its headquarters into a converted iron ore storage towers on the site in 2017.

As part of the wider development of the industrial site, numerous office blocks along with a conference center, waterpark and museum are set to be built.

Big Air Shougang is one of only a handful of new venues built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with many venues from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics hosting events. Another building constructed for the games is the Ice Ribbon arena designed by Populous.

The photography is by Lu Bei, unless stated.

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