Modular climbing wall system that we can transform into geometric shapes resembling rocks – and can customize to the needs of users depending on the age group, climbing skills and the qualities of the given area. HardBodyHang has once again taken outdoor sports to a whole new level: meet ZIGZAG, an innovative sports gear that also received the Hungarian Design Award this year.
Szabolcs Csepregi and Tamás Erdélyi launched their business HardBodyHang in 2011, focusing on manufacturing equipment suitable for doing calisthenics. In addition to several locations in Budapest, their training parks are available in Norway, Denmark, Austria and Italy, too, amongst others.
Wall climbing and indoor boulders are gaining popularity today, yet there are still only a few manufacturers focusing on built public walls. HardBodyHang started to develop the ZIGZAG equipment back in 2018 with the aim of creating an easy-to-build, modular public space version of the sport, helping it reach the broadest possible audience.
“With the team of HardBodyHang, we are continuously looking for emerging types of movement and directions experiencing a renaissance that can be practiced outdoors, in public spaces, too. Bouldering emerged as a possible path of design two and a half years ago, and then Bernát Gara joined the project, who is an active climber and an engineer at the same time. He has already worked on similar projects before. Thus we were ready to realize the idea that has only existed in our minds previously” – they told us.
In the course of the design process, they examined many outdoor climbing wall types, but these primarily function as playgrounds and are intended for younger generations. The system based on tetrahedrons and octahedrons places the emphasis on modularity, owing to which it can be adjusted to various age groups and different climbing skills, and thus can serve a broader layers of users.
HardBodyHang sells the majority of their equipment abroad, thus it is no coincidence that the ZIGZAG training park will be implemented on Greenland first, owing to Danish UNO UNIQA Group. “I think we don’t reveal any big secrets by saying that the challenges arising from the local environment had a vast impact on the product development phase” – the team added. The good news for climbers and sports fans is that the team of HardBodyHang is already working on installing their latest sports equipment at a location in Budapest, too.
It’s also important to highlight that the team has donated a playground or a gym park to organizations focusing on disadvantaged youth almost every year since 2013, and they would like to keep this tradition alive with ZIGZAG, too. “We believe in the educational impact of movement, sports and climbing” – they highlighted.
Photos: Gergő Pálmai
From Lithuania to Russia on the Curonian Spit
Design periodical in the form of a zine | Zinező
