IDEATTACK designs for Yulin
Tourism Zone in China (top left, top right) and Zilant City in Russia (bottom left, bottom right)
“Theme park” usually describes traditional amusement parks, but for IDEATTACK a theme park is a rich, elaborate, soft, immersive environment with intangible values
the attractions and rides but it’s about what’s outside and surrounding you – that’s where people spend most of their time. In the creation of these soft spaces, it’s that intangible value that we create that should connect all the elements in a way that makes sense. Every project is an authorship project –
you’re the creator of a special world that’s different from the one outside.
Is it difficult to balance the business needs of a project with the artistic vision? Dan Thomas: We advise the client to balance the process in a way that business needs don’t over-dominate the creative vision of the project, but we also understand that the business will bring income to the destination and keep it alive – it’s a fine line. The two sides complement each other because if the environment is attractive, people will come and boost the business. Natasha Varnica: The timing of when the project is commissioned is also important. We prefer to come to markets when they are in need of something special.
©CYBERTREK 2015 AM 2 2015
What challenges is the industry facing? Dan Thomas: One of the main challenges in the industry is how to complete all potential projects in a quality way. In our industry this is so important because the quality is the value of the project. Without it, it loses the point. You can do residential blocks badly and people will still live there, but these projects are different. You have to make them appealing so people can make the choice to visit them. Tourism destinations have to be special in order to attract people. The “specialness” of a tourism destination is a determining criterion for its success in comparison to other destination choices that people have. Another concern is some of these projects tend to be extremely expensive to realise and can only be sustained in a few locations in the world at the time. They can exist in these certain locations, but what about the rest of the world? We want to make the cost more realistic.
We believe you can develop world-class projects with quality design and vision on a much more realistic budget, and then they can serve a lot more cities and countries.
What would you like to see happen? Natasha Varnica: Our industry has a responsibility to educate itself about the cultures and countries where it is working. Without doing that, we’re not able to interpret their stories, their cultural values. We need to be more serious about what
we do for the reputation of our industry. We’re concerned that if the industry doesn’t make good progress, the developers will give up – and that may happen.
What’s IDEATTACK’s greatest success? Dan Thomas: We’re constantly making steps forward and we’ve had many achievements. At the moment, several of our projects in China are under construction and we believe they will stand out in terms of quality of experience. We’re working on a special and different theme park located in Changping, between Beijing and the Great Wall of China. It strikes the balance of budget and quality and we believe it will be an eye- opener to developers – hopefully, they’ll realise you don’t need billions of dollars to create high-quality projects. l
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