Discovery Slides / Carve
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Text description provided by the architects. In 2015 Carve and Playpoint won a tender for an adventurous sliding attraction inside the Jewel Changi Airport development, designed by Moshe Safdie Architects. The attraction is located in Canopy Park on the highest level of the new development, which includes a shopping mall, attraction park, and a garden, all in front of Terminal 1. In this canopied park, more than 1400 trees and palms will be housed alongside many other attractions. Creating the ultimate airport experience, and convincing travelers to go through Singapore’s Changi airport instead of others.
In Carve’s original concept, the playground was designed like a sculpture resembling a gemstone; with parts that are carved out – the slides, stairs, and rope climbs – revealing the colored interior of the gem. In this way the playground presents itself in duality; a gem balancing on the fifth ring of a Jewel with a slide attraction hidden inside.
At first, the sinuous shell was designed with mirror tiling over the whole structure. During the design process with the client, this manifested as a continuous and seamless polished steel skin wrapping around the three cones holding up the large access platform. A shiny jewel in the green forest valley of the park. It is an object that will attract people from afar. The shell, with its liquid mercury form, directs and accentuates focus on its surroundings, and visitors can experience infinite and surreal reflections of themselves. The rubber patterning on the floor was even designed to create a spiraling abstract reflection in the shell of the playground.
The viewing deck of the playground will be the highest accessible point in the complex, giving a fantastic view of the entire interior of the airport terminal. Naturally, this will make the play sculpture a crowdpleaser and social media magnet, but it will also invite and attract children of all ages and families for adventure and play. Going up and down the challenging slides, this “WOW” experience of sliding through the cones and landing at the bottom will make visitors come back time and time again.
The bright yellow inside of the play sculpture contains four slides; A family slide, a steep drop slide, and two glass-covered spiral slides coming down from the highest point. The Discovery Slides structure has a complete double-curved steel surface. The curved glass was used as balustrades, in the viewing floor, as spiral slide covers, and on the double curved lid of the highest cone. Fiber optic lights were integrated into the rubberized floor surrounding the structure, point lights in the highest cone, and LED strips on the perimeter of the curved glass balustrade. Air-conditioning was also integrated into the sculpture’s viewing deck to provide a comfortable temperature when children are playing on the slides directly under the roof of the building.
The Discovery Slides playground spans over 18 meters by 16.7 meters in length and stands at 7.5 meters high at the highest point of the platform. Built and produced in three different parts of the world it is indeed a very complex and unique play sculpture. From concept design to realization, the project took over two years to complete.
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