Life Between Skate Tricks (part 1 of 4)
The Hidden Dimension
How could a skatepark be designed to lessen the competition for space and obstacle use that exist in modern skate parks?
The answer to this one may seem disappointing and unimaginative at first but by the end of this four part article I hope to have convinced you that the basic design style I’m proposing is perhaps the only way to make spaces for skating that closely mimic and are able to reproduce many of the positive and social experiences of street skating. The way I plan to do this is by analyzing how skating and socializing would function in a few of the new styles of parks I’m proposing and then I’ll analyze how skating and socializing tend to function in modern skateparks.
To be clear my goal is not to convince people that all modern skateparks are terrible places to skate that are poorly designed. I obviously have my qualms with modern skateparks but like I’ve said before I still skate them. In my experience many of these parks are fine and some are great when one or only a few people are skating them at the same time.
My goal instead is to bring to light the aspects of skating that modern skateparks can only partially or not at all accommodate and then provide design options that would fully accommodate those overlooked aspects of skating.
One of the ways we could cater to those overlooked aspects of skating is by minimizing the competition for space and obstacle use that exist in modern skateparks. In order to do this I believe different types of skateboarding and skate obstacles should be spatially separated. When you think of how skateparks are currently laid out this may seem like a radical idea but if you take a closer look at street skating you realize that this is the way street skating is coincidentally and unintentionally laid out.
To give historical examples think of the curb/ledge spot in Venice beach being near some of Los Angeles’s most famous schoolyard embankment spots.
Natas Kaupus along with Mark Gonzales are widely considered the earliest and most influential innovators of street skating. In this part Natas exemplifies the spatial separation of different types of obstacles in neatly divided sections. The part starts off with a session at Benecia, an old style of skatepark that is 100% embankments. Next he skates a mini ramp. After that he sessions the Venice curb/ledge spot before the edit moves onto some of the blacktop embankments of L.A’s schoolyards. He even skates a perfect example of a street transition in a tennis court. Notice how the quarter pipe is all one size and very wide. There doesn’t appear to be any other obstacles in the tennis court.
Think of Afro banks in Philadelphia being close to Love Park but not in the space of Love Park itself.
Rick Oyola not only skated the Afro banks outside the space of Love Park but also some other interesting bank spots around Philadelphia in this part.
Fred Gall got solid sessions in at all three legendary and now defunct ledge spots in Philly while also rifling off tricks at the Afro banks in his Sub Zero part.
The Brooklyn banks being close to the wooden benches spot formerly at South Street seaport in downtown Manhattan.
The soon to be resurrected Brooklyn Banks and the long gone South Street Seaport wooden benches are in heavy rotation in Peep This.
Embarcadero being not quite as close but close enough to Fort Miley.
Just one trick from Mike Carroll at Fort Miley in this part but it’s one for the books.
I grew up skating in Cincinnati, Ohio. There we have the D.O. banks
The D.O. banks have been skated since the 1970s. This is a little session I had with some friends while visiting Cincinnati a while back.
Our ledge spots are up the street at The University of Cincinnati.
The first line in this part is at the University of Cincinnati. It’s just one of the aforementioned ledge spots that are about a 15 minute walk up the hill from the D.O. Banks.
In a skatepark all of these types of bank and street transition spots are clustered in with the ledges and curbs in the same space. But in street skating the quaterpipe spot or the bank spot is usually some distance away from the ledge, curb or even stair/handrail spot. Of course there are exceptions but for the most part this is true of street skating.
Southern California schoolyards are a classic example of a skate spot where embankments and ledges are mixed in the same space as seen above in the Girl teams section from Las Nueve Vidas De Paco. Something to take note of though is that the picnic tables and benches are all movable. Unlike modern skateparks where the obstacles are obviously immovable. While embankments mixed with curb/ ledge spots are not unheard of I can’t think of any street spots that have both a ledge and a quarterpipe in the same space. I’m sure they exist but they are definitely rare.
My point is that whether it’s a skate, a walk, a drive or a train ride away, spatial separation of different styles of skating is not unprecedented and in fact it more closely aligns with skateboarding’s history.
So with all of that said part two and three of this article will offer a few schemas to show what some of these spatially separated styles of parks could look like. I’ll start by elaborating on the reasoning for each layout. Then I’ll compare these designs to modern skateparks. After that I’ll go into possible modifications of each of my designs.
In part four I’ll get into the more broad reasoning behind these spatially separated styles of skateparks. I’ll try to give perspective to those who might still be skeptical of this different approach. And if all goes well I’ll manage to allude (at least somewhat) to what the next batch of articles will discuss.
(Continued in part two)
This is an interesting idea. I never really thought about how street spots are normally only populated by one or two different obstacles and skateparks are just a cluster of them often too close together.
I look forward to reading part 2 and seeing your suggestions.
Great article, as a beginner I prefer street spots to the skatepark as it’s just less congested and I feel less “in the way”. Look forward to the next parts.