NIVALIS – Reclaiming the ride

What if we made our own sports gear?

NIVALIS is an exploration of how DIY and maker practices can connect individuals to snowboarding culture, sustainable material thinking and the joy of making. The project takes the form of a hand-built snowboard constructed from reclaimed and eco-conscious materials – including research waste birch, flax fiber reinforcement, poplar wood in the core and reclaimed ash veneer – documented as an open process to be recreated in any makerspace or workshop with the needed machines.

Nivalis – from Latin of snow, snow-covered, snowy

At a time when winters are getting shorter, gear is getting more expensive and snowboarding risks becoming a passive consumer experience, Nivalis argues that making your own equipment is a small act of reclaiming something real. The board is imperfect, honest, and entirely personal – because that is exactly the point.

The making process itself became the research – navigating unfamiliar tools, materials and techniques without formal engineering training, and documenting every decision, failure and adaptation along the way. The environment, materials andmachines were not just tools but active participants shaping the outcome of the process. Nivalis is as much about what it means to attempt making something unfamiliar yourself as it is about the object that results from it.

Further information on the project can be found on the DIVA portal.