BASPO Boulder - Martin Siegrist Industrial Design

Three years ago I got the chance to design a unique boulder wall for the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport (BASPO) in Magglingen, Switzerland. The wall features a top out section and a large vertical part for teaching belaying and rope technique.

The boulder wall is located is located in the lower ground level of a new building complex completed just recently. The wall is in a hall used for “Schwingen” which is basically Swiss wrestling. They use sawdust for padding / fall protection. The sawdust needs to be sprayed with water before every session. This was a special challenge for the matting.

The wall has an edge sticking out, similar to my design for the Meiringen World Cup boulder wall. The matting is a simple rectangular shape.

The depth of the sawdust to the left is 50 cm. The PVC cover of the boulder matting has an additional flap which can be pulled over the sawdust when the wall is in use.

The wall has rounded ledges along the entire top edge for safe top outs. The recessed platform and can be accessed from the room behind the wall.

The angles of the edges are all a multiple of 10°. A total of five custom volumes were built to close dihedrals and extend surfaces.

Two matching volumes in a dihedral and an extended surface on the upper right corner of the boulder.

Both the wall and the volumes have been built by Limit / SCS. All panels were cut based on my paneling data exported as DXF files.