BOULDERING® Icons - Rakali
Client
Perth, WA
Year
2026
Structure
Icons - Rakali
Rakali is a sculptural climbing structure designed for a public park in Western Australia. Inspired by the Rakali - Australia’s native water rat - the structure draws on an animal closely associated with waterways, edges, and movement through landscape.
Rather than acting as a standalone object, Rakali was conceived as part of the park itself: a form that people encounter as they move through the space, recognise from different angles, and engage with in varied ways over time.
The Rakali is an animal known for its adaptability and intelligence, living comfortably at the boundary between land and water. In many parts of Australia, it also appears within local ecological knowledge and Aboriginal storytelling connected to Country.
The rakali reference helps ground the structure in its environment, allowing connections between animal, landscape, and movement to emerge naturally through use and context.
Our work on Rakali began with bouldering as a discipline.
The structure was developed by first considering how people might approach it, move around it, test a first hold, or simply pause nearby. The climbing surfaces, angles, and transitions were resolved from this starting point, with the Rakali form emerging through the geometry rather than being imposed on it.
This approach allows the structure to function intuitively as a climbing element while also reading as a sculptural object within the park.
Seen in context, Rakali sits comfortably alongside planting, shade structures, paths, and adjacent play elements. Its scale is deliberate but not dominant, supporting a range of interactions - from brief climbs and repeated challenges to informal gathering and observation. Some users engage immediately, others watch first or return over time, reflecting how the structure operates as part of the social life of the park rather than as a single destination.
Rakali was engineered for durability in high-use outdoor settings, utilising robust materials and detailing developed specifically for public environments. Design, engineering, and fabrication were completed in-house in Melbourne, ensuring consistency of quality and performance throughout the process.
Rakali sits within BOULDERING® ICONS - a direction within the BOULDERING® approach focused on larger, site-responsive, sculptural climbing structures.
Icons draw inspiration from animals, objects, and landscape cues, while remaining grounded in climbing as intuitive movement and designed to integrate naturally within public space. Each Icon is developed in response to its site and brief, with a combination of built projects and concept-led explorations currently in development.
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