Shortcut! This Giant Trampoline Pathway Cuts Through the Russian Forest

Architizer News

Shortcut! This Giant Trampoline Pathway Cuts Through the Russian Forest

November 29, 2012

images © Salto Architects

Remember the Gummi Bears, the cutesy forest-dwelling, potion-drinking bears “bouncing here and there and everywhere“? Well, you won’t need any Gummi Bear juice (long live early 90s cartoon references!) to bounce your way through the Russian forest, thanks to this 170 meter-long trampoline that cuts through the wilderness. “Fast Track” is an outdoor installation by Salto Architects that consists of a giant strip of trampoline stretched along a forest walkway flush with the ground to resemble a sidewalk. Visitors can bounce up and down the wooded area, taking in the sights and sounds like never before. Read more.

The track was built as part of the Archstoyanie Festival, an annual event inside Russia’s Nikola-Lenivets forest, where new design ideas and experiences come together in the great outdoors. The polemic behind ‘Fast Track” aligns with the festival’s core ethos, mainly, to augment the human dimension of urban and infrastructural planning. The firm explains that the project “is an attempt to create intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context, giving the user a different experience of moving and perceiving the environment.”