Projects - Christchurch Adventure Park

The Canterbury Adventure Park (CAP) consists of four simple building forms wrapped in black metal cladding and lined with pine plywood, placed within a forest of pines to create a Village Green atmosphere.

The slightly elevated cafe has a folded roof plane that appears to be draped over a series of timber posts and beams. The roof cantilevers out over a large deck area for visitors to enjoy the views out to the wider park. The buildings sit well within their landscape, enhancing the view along with providing visitor facilities.

Elements were prefabricated to help ease time-frame and budget constraints of the project. Clear definition of architectural elements and a consistency of approach have resulted in an award-winning outcome.

The Christchurch Adventure Park is the only purpose built park of its kind in the world, is the only one to be open 365 days a year, and is the largest Mountain Bike Park in the Southern Hemisphere. It includes a purpose built high-speed mountain bike chair lift and is the longest in New Zealand at 1.8km long. It also includes a Zip Line Tour with four legs that flies 180m above the forest floor.

The team working on Christchurch Adventure Park definitely felt the location and the atmosphere of working in a beautiful pine forest made this a completely unique project. A key design feature was ensuring the building blended in with the natural environment. The first three buildings, an office/ticketing facility, a retail shop and a bike storage building - were completed in just three months. The construction of the fourth building - the cafe - took three and half months as a result of the steep sloping site.