Challenge Park was conceived for a long time to serve the younger community at Putrajaya, the new capital city of Malaysia. The two facilities, comprising the Wall Climbing centre and the Skate park, together with the Dirt Bike Trail, and many other Xtreme-Games has been under construction for two years now, and should soon be seeing the completion of the superstructure phases later this year, slated to complete in late 2008. Never intended to be anything but a truly sustainable building with low-energy systems and technology applied for the ventilation requirements and support facilities.

The materials used are naturally expressed, and columns are of the thinnest sections and the roof constructed of the most basic lightweight metal decking systems. No apparent decorative painting has been required for any of the exposed structures, and low maintenance finishes appear throughout the scheme so that with time we see no need for any major refinishing in the near future. Finishes can take a lot of punishment and wear and tear, as is expected from a building of this nature, programmatically designed to engage human physical intervention and contact. In a sense, the building is expected to rapidly age with time and weather and use to look as if it was there for a very long time.

The architectural language embraced within a strong and disciplined artistic direction supports the view that all columns of varying lengths and girths should be as if they were tree trunks, floor slabs sail above the ground, walls seemingly carved out of the landscape, and ramps and stairs resemble mere folds off the surrounding terrain.

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