The layout ensures that all visitors have a clear and close-up view of the stage due to the limited number of rows. The stage and backstage areas of the Showpalast are designed to allow horses to access the show space from all directions. High-tech projection technology augments the real with the virtual, creating a flexible immersive theatrical experience. The front of the Showpalast is clad with an undulating folded timber slat screen that appears to take flight – like a galloping horse in motion – especially in the evenings when illuminated by a light show.

The Showpalast, with its strong visual iconography, forms the centrepiece of the amusement park and enters into a symbiotic relationship with its surroundings, establishing an up-beat connection between the natural and the artificial. The other pavilions, despite their different functions and characters, will share a similar material palette and design-DNA so that together they form a harmonious ensemble, lending the brand a sense of spatial identity. The use of wood as a natural and familiar material makes the avant-garde forms of the pavilions more approachable.

GRAFT’s design for the theme park gives the outstanding horse show a distinctive and instantly recognisable public face. Work will continue in 2018 with the successive addition of pavilions housing a horse care centre, horse museum, a blacksmith, veterinary centre, science centre, a riding hall and lunging circle, a 360° cinema, foal station as well as various stables