Topotron is a proposal for a skatepark in Dresden, Germany, developed in close collaboration with artist Stefan Sous and landscape architects Club L94. The project was awarded 4th Prize as a Special Prize of the Jury. Conceived as both a skatepark and a large-scale art installation, it transforms an existing urban landscape into a continuously changing topography for skating.

The site occupies a particular position within Dresden, situated along the green axis between the historic city center and the Großer Garten. Its character is shaped by very different layers of the city’s history: the formal landscape of the Baroque garden, the open spaces and large-scale buildings of the postwar period, and monuments belonging to both. Rather than imposing an autonomous object onto this setting, Topotron develops from these existing conditions. Its artificial landscape incorporates the historic Baroque pavilion and the monument from the GDR period as fixed points within a new continuous field.

With its complex topography of small hills and valleys in variable densities and gradients, Topotron offers an extreme variety of ever-changing courses for skating. The modulated, dark asphalt surface stretches over an area of 27.5 by 250 meters and is structured by a grid of white stripes painted with reflective color that glows in the dark when illuminated by a fluorescent black-light system installed along the field. The resulting linear structure evokes the effect of a three-dimensional construction drawing projected onto the artificial landscape, translating the virtual aesthetic of a video game, simulator, or science-fiction movie into the real world.