X-Air is Australasia’s largest action-sports festival and is returning to Aotearoa for the first time since 2007. RICH Landscapes was contracted to design park area for the skate, BMX and scooter competitions.

The nature of the X-Air competition is to see competitors from all over the world compete in their respective sports, so we focused on designing a competitive arena that exceeds international standards for action-sport competition.

Integrating the needs of 3 different action-sports into the design allowed RICH Landscapes to focus on providing various obstacles to push athletes to think creatively when riding them.

The park is set up in traditional competition format, with the central arena encompassing an array of street and transitional obstacles and various quarter-pipes and roll-ins on either side. This allows for continuous riding during the competition, so athletes don’t have to break a line which maximises their time in the park.

Features of the park include:

• Large Quarter-pipes on either side of the park
• Over-vert quarter-pipe rolling into a kicker
• Roll-ins and bank features alongside the quarter-pipes
• Bank-to-ledge/Eurogap obstacle on one end
• A smaller quarter-pipe leading to a platformed area with a down-wedge and pole-jam leading to a stair, rail, hubba and ledge obstacle at the end
• Small hip onto wall-ride and platform access
• Up-and-down rail, hubba and kicker box
• Spine transition and big launch/quarter-pipe obstacle
• Rollover box leading back to quarter-pipes

The entire park is designed to be constructed and easily stored for future competition, and incorporates fauna on the quarter-pipe deck for shade and a natural aesthetic look to compliment the native environment in which the competition takes place.

Don’t forget to check out our blogpost for more information and visit the X-air website for details on the competition.

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