RUSH_ a corporate design project for surf competitions in cooperation with O´Neill Europe

There is one thing in each of us, a little something that makes us do crazy things sometimes….that makes us keep control (or at least let us think we have the control) and go one step further than we did before…that little something is a hormone and is called Adrenaline.
Without adrenaline extreme sports would not make any sense, it would feel the same to ride monstrous wave, followed by a shark or take a walk in the park on a sunny afternoon. The confrontation with a huge wave, the noise it makes when it rolls towards you, your fear it could capture you and not letting you go again, falling down from your board, your lunges filled with water, not able to breathe anymore, the will to survive is what brings you back to the beach. Adrenaline lets you go through experiences, your body knows well, but cannot produce it without extern effects. May it be speed, height, danger? That is what adrenaline junkies go for. That unique kick- that extreme thrill.

That is why you feel satisfied, when you rode a huge wave, survived an extreme scarped slope, an avalanche you flee from, or jumping out of a plane, knowing the only thing you can trust now is the parachute on your back.
So, thinking about surfing and my project for O´ Neill I tried to find a common denominator, that units the facts about extreme sports. By researching what happens to the mind and the body by performing these sports, I found out that adrenaline is a fascinating hormone that gives us the chance to outgrow and exceed. And as these two words describe what I wanted to do for O´ Neill I decided to build up my project on the chemical structure of adrenaline.

The whole system is based on an aluminium construction, it had to be lightweight to make it mobile and transportable with a truck or, just in case also by plane. Thinking of the human body it seems like the flowing aluminium tubes could be the veins of the project.

The cross section dimension of the tubes is 10cm with a wall thickness of 5mm. By sticking them together with a clip technique and fixing by bracing tubes this scaffolding can be build up by a working team in a day. The polycarbonate surfaces are divided into 1.50m size pieces and are zipped together. This zipping system is a metaphor to the neoprene wetsuits which are always very tight and closed by a zip on the back. So i decided to wrap the scaffolding with deep-drawn shape fitted polycarbonate pieces, which are white with a graphic on it and slightly transparent. This way spotlights can be added on the scaffold and the structure starts to glow at night.

Special Thanks to DR. Mladen Jadric and Sascha Weil.