YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
With the available bitumen roof waterproofing, the necessary requirements for the greening and the utilisation of the roof were to hand. This is how - 7 metres above the ground and on a surface area of approx. 5,300m² - a minigolf adventure park was created, which has enjoyed tremendous popularity since it opened in 2007.
Tricky obstacles made up of hills, rock features and cracks and hollows – Adventure Golf is the American version of minigolf, which is popular here in Germany. The difference with the German version is not so much in the game itself – 18 holes have to be conquered here, too – but rather in the elaborate design of the golf course itself. In addition, the courses we tee off from are not made from concrete, but from artificial turf. Landscape architect Urban Führes approached the minigolf adventure park in Zirndorf in a similar manner. With more than 300 sandstone rocks, trees, shrubs and spacious grassed areas, he created a natural adventure landscape in which the play areas are harmoniously incorporated.
A central element of the course is an artificial creek that snakes its way through the park and the individual minigolf holes, which have been designed to playfully include the landscape elements such as water, rocks and vegetation. For the creation of the dry creek, Führes selected a sanded mastic asphalt which was covered in coarse gravel. Thanks to the high percentage of bitumen, the mastic asphalt could be easily modelled and installed to millimetre accuracy because the asphalt binding agent is balanced with an aggregates mixture which, when in use, nearly fills the hollow sections completely. Through this procedure, a slight asphalt excess is created during the ‘hot’ installation that makes the mastic asphalt both mouldable and spreadable. Each golf hole fairway is made from special playable artificial turf which can be walked on and the course also sports hills, stone bridges, plateaux and tunnels that provide diverse playing experiences. They are joined by a long, colourful asphalt path. The total size of the asphalt surfaces is 1,000m².
Avoiding point loads
Apart from its extravagant, close-to-nature design, the minigolf course in Zirndorf distinguishes itself by its extraordinary location: It is to be found approx. 7 metres above ground level on the roof of the neighbouring amusement park’s multi-storey car park where the vegetation overflows on two sides of the roof. This presented particular challenges for landscape architect Führes. The roof’s static load could only take an additional 350kg/m². That is why the trees needed to be planted directly above the columns, in order to avoid creating point loads in the fields. In addition to this, a particularly light drainage and base layer made from foam glass gravel was selected for the construction. It constitutes the base layer for the vegetation layer. Depending on the planting – numerous grasses, shrubs and trees were used – the layer can be 15 to 25cm thick and thereby offered plenty of scope for the plantation and living design of the minigolf adventure park.
A huge advantage was that the roof of the multi-storey car park built in 1999 had properly functioning bitumen waterproofing, which helped protect the building from the effects of the weather, particularly from moisture.
