Think Your Office Is Fun? This Swedish Studio Has A Fully-functioning Indoor Roller Coaster

Source: Fast Company, Grace Snelling
Photo: Courtesy of The Great Exhibition

The bright red coaster is 200 feet long, 10 feet tall, and weighs four tons.

Some offices have free coffee. Others have complimentary lunches. If you want to get really crazy, a few even have an in-building gym. But there’s only one office in the world with a fully-functioning indoor roller coaster.

That office is in Stockholm, Sweden, and it’s home to the recently rebranded creative studio The Great Exhibition. For the past 15 years, the studio (formerly known as PJADAD) has worked on creating head-turning brand experiences—like a playground made out of textiles for IKEA and a city of geometric food cubes for Atelier Food.

On October 25, the studio is reopening under its new name with leadership from founder Petter Kukacka and his co-creative director Per Cromwell Eriksson. For Kukacka, the reopening will also include the realization of a decades-long dream: building his own indoor roller coaster.

“I can’t say if it was 20 or 15 years ago that I started dreaming about it,” Kukacka says. “It’s an impossible dream. I couldn’t figure out how to make one, and everyone I talked to said the same: ‘You have to drop the roller coaster, it’s not only impossible, it’s impractical, dangerous, and too expensive.’ It’s easier said than done to drop a dream. The more impossible it seemed, the stronger the urge to build one became. Even if there are a lot of cons—I really do understand all this—there is one big pro: That it is fun.”

The finished office coaster, named The Frontal Lobe, is about 200 feet long with a max elevation of just under 10 feet. It’s made from four tons of red-lacquered steel and takes a winding path throughout the space: The ride starts by the electrical cabinet, flies past the social media department, zooms to the kitchen, then passes over the main entrance, and down around the make-up room and studio.

The coaster is not just inside the office, it’s literally a part of it—passing right over tables where employees are plotting out their next experimental project, chatting with their colleagues, and microwaving their leftover pizza.

Can a roller coaster be an act of AI resistance?

The studio’s founders say the goal of the Frontal Lobe is three-fold. First, obviously, it’s for fun. Second, it’s a visual representation of the studio’s focus on “projects that move away from the predictable patterns of technology-driven content, instead aiming to create experiences that resonate emotionally.” And third, as Eriksson puts it, it’s a kind of metaphor for the trajectory of the creative industry at large. “The technological revolution is killing creativity, and we want to bring back what feels real—something an algorithm could never propose,” Eriksson wrote in a press release.

Eriksson calls the roller coaster an “act of resistance” against the recent explosion of AI tech, and Kukacka takes a similar stance. While he believes that AI will have some practical benefits, like improving infrastructure and making medical advancements, his view is that AI-generated content will have a net negative impact on creative pursuits.

“Just round the corner we will have real-time AI generated content based on user data. Another zillion dollars will be invested to give us the most attractive content and the race will be for finding the best model for predictability,” Kukacka says. “We will have a giant tsunami of content, and it will have no soul. This will make the world a more dull place.”

Kukacka’s solution to this existential problem? A roller coaster, of course.

“This is why it’s important to build a roller coaster,” he says. “Because a roller coaster doesn’t really make sense. It’s not a conventional or expected solution to a defined problem. If a computer would suggest a roller coaster in an office, it would never do it, because it’s fun. The human factor is today associated with an oversight or an error. I hope that the human factor will start representing something valuable, and maybe it will sooner than we think.”

The challenges of building an office roller coaster

It goes without saying that building a functional roller coaster inside an office presents significant design challenges. The first “and maybe biggest” factor, Kukacka says, “was our complete lack of engineering knowledge about things like radius, g-forces, and other technical factors. Very few people know anything about roller coasters, we later found out.”

That wasn’t going to stop the team from bringing The Frontal Lobe to life. Kukacka and Eriksson consulted with several different companies who specialize in building roller coasters, for engineering guidance. They also tried sourcing input from a “backyard roller coaster community,” Kukacka says, but “mostly they warned us about risks and kept recommending PVC pipes—who wants to ride a roller coaster made of plastic?”

Ultimately, they found the most support from Niklas Karlsson, an engineer who typically specializes in designing bridges. Viktor Andersson, a designer at The Great Exhibition, served as the in-house lead designer. After getting a solid understanding of the engineering, the next obstacle was fitting the coaster into a cramped office space.

“Climbing over a rail to get to the toilets? Crawling under the track to get more coffee? Matching the strict physics of gravity and the everyday life of an office was tricky. But we didn’t give up,” Kukacka says.

Taking a ride on company time

About 200 iterations later, the team finally had a plan to make the coaster a reality. A company specializing in building ferris wheels agreed to offer the specialized 3D pipe bending needed for the project. In all, it took a bit over a year from starting production to the delivery of the coaster.

Then came another obvious issue: rider safety. To clear the way for riders’ heads, builders had to remove any lamps and pipes that stood in the way. They also implemented a double-brake system in the cart to prevent whiplash from harsh braking. The final touch was installing a loud bell that rings any time someone is about to ride the coaster (and, yes, it’s one at a time).

In all, Eriksson estimates that the materials and equipment for the project cost around $150,000. As for how the coaster got approved, that’s a bit muddier. Eriksson clarified that the team initially registered the coaster with city officials as a “steel structure,” then changed it to a “interior design object.” “There are no fitting classifications for indoor roller coasters in Sweden,” Eriksson says. “So there are no clear rules or legislations against them either.”

Installation on the coaster was completed last week. So far, Kukacka says, everyone has a different approach to the coaster, with some employees incorporating it as a morning ritual and others going for a last ride before they head out for the day.

“One interesting thing we’ve noticed is that there’s a kind of stigma around enjoying roller coasters,” Kukacka says. “Many people really love them, but don’t talk about it. It’s almost like a guilty pleasure. Some people have even said that roller coasters are ‘sexy.’ It’s like the line between high and low culture—roller coasters are so universally loved, but few people openly embrace their passion for them. We are very happy to have it and it really changed life at the studio. If you ask me if I recommend it I would say, ‘Yes.’”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grace Snelling is a contributor for Fast Company with a focus on product design, branding, advertising, art, and all things Gen Z. Her stories have included an exploration into the wacky world of water branding, a chat with Questlove about his creative-centric YouTube series, and a look into Wayfair’s first-ever physical store More

https://www.fastcompany.com/91215989/swedish-office-indoor-roller-coaster