communityskates

[communityskates]

Today I drew more concepts for my local skatepark. I've been in contact with the recreation program coordinator for the city trying to make these ideas a reality. The South-East corner of the park is completely bare, and one skater I talked to said it would be a good spot for a quarter pipe. I threw a ledge into the QP for variety, but perhaps a banked ramp would be better.

On the East side, I made two swales. I've read about swales while reading up on permaculture. They help create strong root systems and can help maximize space. I extended the swales into the park to create those fun "tootsie rolls" you can pump or air over, with a ledge to hop onto. 

One key aspect of these designs is that they cross the barrier of the fence, but retain their separation. I decided to place the entire garden outside of the park this so gardeners wouldn't risk getting run into by skaters. This also protects the plants from being trampled.

I can't wait for all that snow to melt so I can take more accurate measurements.

Do you have any ideas or designs? Send them my way, I'd love to see them!

[communityskates]

"One of the world’s poorest and most conservative countries seems a strange place to set up a skateboarding school, but the Australian founders of Skateistan who built it from small-time project to award-winning international NGO, say it has proved a remarkably successful way to reach out to marginalized children, particularly girls.

Women can’t ride bicycles in Afghanistan, but skateboarding is novel enough to be open to women and has attracted them in droves to the Kabul school where classes are free, and at the back of the skating section are neat changing areas and classrooms where children can study everything from basic literacy to advanced computing when they put down their boards and take off their helmets.”

The UK Daily Mail posted a nice little article about Skateistan. Check it out, and then head over to the Skateistan website and help keep Skateistan rolling.

[communityskates]

I know skateboarding's not gonna save the world but I know that skateboarding is doing a lot of positive things to reinforce the youth of today. It's also a community you know? It's like we're a family, we look out for each other. Whether you're Christian, Buddhist, Muslim - it doesn't matter, man. A skater is a skater. It doesn't matter if you're straight, gay, whatever - That's your cup of tea.

Quim Cardona

[communityskates]

Skate Your Home

Here's an episode of a really neat series on YouTube which comes out each ...month? Every other week? It's varied lately. Anyway, it's called SKATE: [Some city]. Each episode follows a skater and usually a few members of their local crew, who give you a personal tour around their city. This usually includes highlighting historical skate spots, good places to eat, and local skate shops.

The show doesn't always take place in the United States, which is another reason I really like it. There have been episodes in Berlin, Hong Kong, Kuala Lampur... Just to name a few. 

The sociologist in me loves the cultural exchange, be it from a different country or just regional differences. The skater in me loves all the skating, of course. The more episodes you watch, the more you can get a different feel for each city. Just like different areas have different accents, different cities have different skate spots and terrain. 

Some cities are smaller, easily crossed from one side to the other on a skateboard. Others require public transit of some kind. It's a really nice way to showcase the different ways skaters get around and visit spots all over a city.

Most skaters will showcase a spot, and immediately rattle off who did what. "You might recognize this spot from [skate video], [pro skater] did [some trick], [some other trick], [yet another trick] which doesn't sound like a big deal but at the time it was huge." So it's kind of like a historical walking/skating tour of whatever city you're in. 

I think the reason I really like this web series, and why I think it applies to this blog/project so much is that it illustrates the travelling/tourism aspect of skateboarding which isn't necessarily apparent to non-skaters. To most civilians, the only time they engage with skaters is by seeing them on the street or seeing some evidence that skaters have been there. It's easy to see this as pure property damage (which I don't deny that it is) but what's often missed is the rich history that's behind some of these spots. Moreover, they draw other skaters to them as they travel & vacation. There's even another web series Fully Torqued which follows a group of pro skaters who travel in an RV, living in each city for a month at a time to really get a feel for how they are. With skateboarding's growth in popularity over the last 20 years especially, it's not uncommon for people to visit other cities for the sole purpose of skateboarding. I always bring a board or two when I travel. Rolling around a new city on a skateboard is one of the best ways to get a feel for it.

One of the sadder things you'll see in many of these videos is a proliferation of knobbed spots. Skate stoppers is another subject I plan on blogging about in the future. This is more apparent in some videos compared to others, which again goes to show how some cities have tried to handle the "skateboarder problem", as I assume they call it. Which is a shame. Rick McCrank discusses this in the Vancouver episode, about how much easier it was to skate when he was coming up in skateboarding, and how he's not sure what future generations will do other than stay confined to one of the newer skateparks. I feel the same way.

This was harder to write about than I anticipated. My main point is that each city has its own unique style and feel, as well as history and skate culture. I can see pictures of certain skatespots and instantly know what city they're in because they're so famous. Unfortunately over the years many have fallen into disrepair, or actively been destroyed by governing bodies via knobbing and the use of skate-stoppers. I think building more places in which skateboarding is encouraged alongside other community activities is a great way to help revitalize urban areas, and provide creative physical outlets for the people who live there.

[communityskates]

Conceptual Art for Skate Spots

These are merely ideas. Nothing is drawn to scale, these are just illustrations of what a skate spot could look like, and how certain features (water collection, public library, sheltered bike racks, etc) could be integrated with them.

I drew these up real quick. The first is a simple planter which has a sloped roof to collect water which it can store in its own cistern, effectively making a self-watering garden. With a filtration system it could conceivably become a drinking water source. Either way, collecting rainwater would have an impact on diverting stormwater and using it for other more useful purposes. The slope on the right side of the planter serves as a launch ramp, and the structure itself is designed to be a ledge obstacle for grinds as well as a manual pad.

The second picture is a banked ramp which provides space for a protected bike rack. Any number of things could also go under it, I scribbled a few ideas in there. What other functions could this have?

The third is a much bigger undertaking. It started as a miniramp with an arched sod roof over it. This could also be used as a pedestrian walking path - or just as a nice way to create a dry area for a miniramp yet still provide a place for plants, fungi (I threw a couple mushroom friends in there) insects, and other flora/fauna to exist within an urban setting. I added more features to try to give it some kind of context, notably a large space for artwork such as a mural, or a free-graffiti area. A structure like this could be well placed in a park between two large swales, or perhaps in an underutilized alley. Sod roofs are of particular interest to me because they reduce stormwater runoff, keep things cool, and are very beautiful. They help blend nature into urban settings in a unique way.

I plan to draw up more concept art, and I strongly encourage you to do the same! The sky is the limit! Show me what ideas you have - submit them and I will gladly post them.

[communityskates]

A List of Things Skates Spots Can (and Should!) Be:

Just as skaters have demonstrated by finding other uses for benches, ledges, curbs, etc... Skate spots by their nature offer more to the community than just a skate park - by way of benches, gardens, & aesthetically pleasing landscape architecture to name a few. Creativity with consideration to local features as well as the needs and desires of the community should be key guides. The possibilities are endless. Below is a list of  conceivable functions I think skate spots can offer.

Community gardens

Gathering spaces for lunching, picnics, small group meetings and events (for instance, the place you might meet at for a walking tour)  

Shelters/shade structures

Bicycle parking

Water fountain stations

Enhance existing bicycle & walking paths

Public art installations, such as fountains or sculptures

Art centered destinations, such as walls for art exhibits or encouraged graffiti areas

Be used as a destination where experimentation and practice with green technology and methods is encouraged

Public micro-libraries

Staging areas with multi-tiered ledges to accommodate an audience

Landscape architecture

Come to think of it, this entire idea is the exactly what landscape architecture is all about. I had not noticed this, or at least not their degree of overlap. This is fantastic! I'll have more to write about after talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a landscape architect & skateboarder...

In the mean time, while this blog has very few followers, I'd like to extend the invitation to anyone who reads this to send in any of your ideas about what skate spots could be. Write them down, draw them, take a picture... Anything! I'll be sketching out some of my ideas in the very near future.

Are you a landscape architect, or city planner of some type? An artist, skateboarder, gardener? I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to contact me on here or via CommunitySkates@Gmail.com

[communityskates]

In an effort to create a movement of "skateparks as public art," Dubai's Tashkeel Art Studio embarked on designing and building a skateable art sculpture that serves not only to provide a great place to skate but also to create a beautiful aesthetic dimension to the landscape. What was produced has become the world renown Tashkeel Ramp that spells "art" in Arabic. A symbol that it is indeed possible to combine utility and beauty in a single structure to inspire kids, change the skatepark construction dynamic, and perpetuate a movement where skateparks are viewed as functional art reflecting the performance art of skateboarding itself.

What else is possible?

[communityskates]

Why Skate Spots?

When this idea was in its infancy, I envisioned some liberal skater's wet dream of a massive skatepark which doubled as a community education/gathering space. While organizations such as Skateistan have had success in pursuing this avenue, the fact of the matter is that it takes A LOT of work to build a quality skatepark. Best case scenario, one skatepark takes years of work. Scouting for an ideal location, raising a large sum of money, and advocacy work with local government are just a few of the main challenges. Furthermore, funds in smaller municipalities may be severely limited. Even if the skatepark is eventually built years later, it's only useful to people who live nearby or someone who can afford a car. They're also a tough sell to citizens, who don't get much use out of them other than having a place to tell you to go after they kick you off public property.

This isn't to say we shouldn't be building skateparks - Only that building a quality skatepark is a tough sell for small, less wealthy communities. Geographically, they benefit less people as well. Their scope of use for the general population is also severely limited. Other non-profits with deeper pockets and more experience are better suited to tackle the momentous task of getting a skatepark built.

Even if there had been a skatepark in my general area, it would have been difficult for me to get there without being able to drive, or having access to adequate public transportation. I had neither of these things growing up.

Skate spots on the other hand can be designed to suit any number of community needs. Skateboarders routinely travel between a number of small spots which have one or two useful features. Instead of focusing huge amounts of time and money on a single location, smaller destinations can be spread throughout an area. Not only does this present destinations to a wider geographic region, it also encourages people to travel between them. This has the potential benefit of encouraging support of local businesses, exercise, and taking an interest in an individual's immediate community.

Many skate features serve utilitarian purposes as well. When creatively applied, a banked ramp is not only a fun place to ride a skateboard, it can improve handicap accessibility and/or provide a more aesthetically engaging environment. Ledges can easily be used as planter boxes to greenify the urban landscape. Vacant corners/lots can be revived with small retrofits to become more useful and appealing spaces.

Such small projects are also the perfect fodder for youth outreach organizations, such as The Boys & Girls Club, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, as well as other community-service based groups. These projects continue to serve a purpose beyond the initial planning and execution stages, as they can serve as places where people learn to grow food or become ideal spaces for art projects. (Just to name a new examples...)

Such spots promote community cohesion. When strategically placed near walking or bike paths, they encourage a certain neighborhood familiarity. The iconic skate destination LOVE Park in Philadelphia suffered a skate ban which became fully enforced in 2002, which unfortunately has not been overcome despite protests from numerous skateboarders, companies, and local citizens. "Neighbors expressed concern that without the constant presence of skateboarders the park becomes desolate and unsafe at night." (Source) 

While listening to NPR the other day, I heard a story about keeping Chicago students safe from gang-related gun violence while walking to and from school.

"The way you make young people safe is you help to build stable communities. We know that there's been confrontations between gang members and young people walking to and from these routes. Why? Because they're in communities or neighborhoods where they're not familiar."

I cannot make any claims about skate spots keeping kids safe from gun violence. However, I believe that by encouraging young people to become involved in their own communities by helping build places they'd like to be, we can make meaningful steps towards building more stable communities. 

So to recap: Why Skate Spots?

They do not require nearly as much time, resources, or space to build.

They can be strategically placed to encourage pedestrian traffic, exercise, and be available to a much wider geographic area.

They can serve other functions which benefit the community at large (gardens, benches, handicap accessibility, aesthetic appeal, arts in general...)

They are small enough to be tailor made to a local area's specific needs.

They are manageable projects which are well-suited for planning, execution, and use by community-service oriented organizations and groups.

[communityskates]

Why Skateboarding? Skateboarding is a fun and challenging activity for everyone, regardless of age, gender, or ability. There are no goals or rules beyond the ones you set yourself. In the above TEDxTalk, world famous skateboarder (and personal hero of mine) Rodney Mullen describes what particularly interested him in skateboarding: 

"As a kid I grew up on a farm in Florida, and I did what most little kids do. I played a little baseball, did a few other things like that. But I always had a sense of being an outsider. It wasn't until I saw pictures in the magazines and a couple other guys skate that I thought 'Wow that's for me because there's no coach standing directly over you. And these guys they were just being themselves and there was no opponent directly across from you.' And I loved that sense."

These words resonate strongly with me because I too grew up in a rural area on a hobby farm. Like Rodney, I did things like play baseball or basketball when I was at school. I found it was hard to get excited about team sports because I didn't have easy access to a team I could play with or against, since I had to return home every day on the bus. Even though I fit in at school and had many friends, I also felt like an outsider. When I discovered skateboarding, I had something I could do at home in my driveway. I had access to two barns chock full of scrap wood and tools so that I could build little ramps or obstacles for myself. I read skate magazines, watched skate videos, built my own micro skateboards out of beads, wire coat hangers, cardboard, & sandpaper (basically what we now know as "fingerboards", but before they were mass produced by companies such as Tech Deck). Just knowing that there were other people skating in other places and see them in photos and videos made me feel like part of a community even though I had very few neighbors. I could participate in the activity of skateboarding in my own way. Regardless of geography, I had a community.

Throughout this post I will continue to return to Rodney's TEDx video as he has keen insights which illustrate and inspire the core ideas of what the Community Skates Project is: creative, expressive, and cooperative. 

The title of Mullen's TED talk is How Context Shapes Content. To better unpack this idea, let's first start by imagining the first time we encounter a skateboard ourselves. Perhaps you can remember the first time you stepped on a skateboard, or got one as a present for a birthday or holiday. You set it on the ground, or carpet, or floor in your house... And you stand on it - perhaps a little shakily at first, but then you are on it. What happens? What happens before you step off or fall off, when you're standing on top of what is ultimately a toy made out of wood, metal, and urethane? Where do you see yourself rolling on your skateboard, in what context are you doing skateboarding?

I wanted to know what I could do with what I had at my house, which consisted of a few porch steps, a tiny curb, and a slightly sloped driveway which terminated into a much longer gravel driveway. To learn how to skateboard I first had to get used to rolling down my driveway while keeping my balance. Then learn pushing and turning, before I could ultimately progress to rolling off that tiny curb into my driveway, and finally getting back up the curb. By this point, I had "mastered" my surroundings because I could travel on every surface that was available. But I needed more.

I had seen skate videos and magazines. I even checked out books about skateboarding from my "local" library - I remember getting the impression that they were already dated. They were chock full of pictures of guys in weird pants with wheels much smaller that I was used to seeing (early-90's skate fashion at its "finest") but I soaked it all up like a sponge. Skateboarding wasn't just confined to ramps, but whatever was in front of  you. There were guys jumping over fire hydrants, kickflipping across gaps, grinding down ledges over stairs... I developed "skater vision", sizing up every curb, ledge, slope, and parking lot for its skating possibilities. Sitting here now, over 15 years later I realize that this skater vision never, ever goes away. Skateboarding provides an alternative context in which I perceive and interact with my world.

"What we do as street skaters is ... you cruise around the same streets that you've seen 100 times. But suddenly, because you already have something in this fixed domain ... What will match this trick? How can the context, the environment change the very nature of what I do?" 

I was jealous of my suburb and city dwelling friends that had all these great curbs, ledges, stairs, and parking lots to go to - to say nothing of the few skateparks which started to pop up during the wave of skate-popularity that resulted from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video games and the X-Games. Since I've grown and moved to a college campus, and then a large metropolitan area, my skate vision has gone even crazier.

"The beauty of skateboarding is that no one guy is the best ... What makes them great is the degree to which they use their skateboarding to individuate themselves."

Full disclosure: I'm not very good at skateboarding, or at least I don't think so. I can traverse numerous obstacles, hills, ramps, sketchy terrain... But I can't do much by way of tricks. This is okay though, because I know that I can skate anywhere I go, for a long time. I've skated 55 miles in a single day. An average day of skateboarding around the city with friends will easily clear 7 miles. I have my own skill set, and I'm hungry to develop it further. At the very least I have a method of transportation which is engaging, fun, & healthy. My knowledge of the subculture of skate allows me to converse on a deep level with other skateboarders regardless skill. Skateboarding is a core aspect of my identity, as it is for many others - and we're more than excited to share. I may not be the most talented skater, but no one really is, and we all contribute to the scene in our own ways.

"Real respect is given by how much we take what other guys do, these basic tricks, 360 flips - We take that, we make it our own. And then we contribute back to the community the inner way that edifies the community itself. The greater the contribution, the more we express and form our individuality - Which is so important to a lot of us who feel like rejects to begin with. The summation of that gives us something we could never achieve as an individual."

I love the skateboarding community, even with all its rough edges which skaters often viciously defend as part of the historical culture of skateboarding. Conversely, we also fight for greater public acceptance so we can conquer more of our surroundings and be seen as legitimate members of our community. Despite the rapidly growing popularity and visibility of skateboarding as a professional sport, it is still difficult to shake skateboarding's association with delinquency, property damage, and rebellion - no doubt in part due to the fact that most skateboarders are proud of this distinction. You don't have to be doing anything to get kicked out of somewhere for skateboarding - the mere act of rolling around can be enough for a security guard or "concerned citizen" to chase you off "their" property. How dare we? 

As mentioned before, skateboarding as a culture or lifestyle sport is highly expressive, and thus difficult to pinpoint. As with many other things in life, it's useful to move away from trying to define it in either/or terms and instead using a both/and approach. 

"There's some sort of beautiful symmetry, that the degree to which we connect to a community is in proportion to our individuality, which we are expressing by what we do."

That certain skateboarding tricks cause damage to property is not contested. What's unfortunate is that so many people fail to see what else is behind this inevitable damage. Ledges aren't ground down or discolored by wax because of some skateboarder's malicious intent to destroy. They're the result of countless hours of dedicated effort and practice, often encouraged by others in a friend group or community. The damage is an artifact of a physical and mental challenge confronted and overcome by the individual. Is this something we wish to discourage? Certainly not, but it sure is unfortunate that many of the best places to skate happen to be in front of Federal buildings, or other public-yet-private property. Is it really efficient to ticket people for what is more or less recreational exercise? Is what we've learned from skateboarding's re-imagining of public space and architecture without merit? Consider, as Rodney Mullen does, the similarity between skateboarders and hackers:

"Very similar community that's extremely conducive to innovation. Notice a couple of these shots by the police department. What is it to hack? It's knowing a technology so well that you can manipulate it and steer it to do things it was never intended to do, right? And they're not all bad, you can be a Linux kernel hacker to make it more stable, more safe, more secure. You can be an iOS hacker and make your iPhone do stuff it wasn't supposed to. Not authorized, but not illegal. And then you've got some of these guys ... They connect disparate information and they bring it together in a way that security analysts don't expect. It doesn't make them good people, but it's at the heart of engineering, of a creative & innovative community."

A community which embraces creativity also nurtures innovation. Innovation necessarily requires risk, something intrinsically tied to skateboarding. We should take a step back and acknowledge some of the aspects of skateboarding which should be addressed for an acceptable balance between public safety and personal freedom. To ban or discourage something outright stifles creativity and growth. Our technology would not be as advanced as it is without hackers who pick it apart and test the boundaries of what it is capable of. There are always ways to harness an activity and ultimately make it productive and worthwhile, as long as we allow creative ways to mitigate potential negative outcomes.

"The basic ethos of an open-source community is: Take what other people do, make it better, and then give it back so we all rise further." 

Skateboarding is an individual sport, with no clear rules or objectives, or teams ...Unless you want there to be. You can (and should!) skate with friends, make up rules for a game like SKATE (the equivalent of HORSE in basketball) or make up your own teams, which seem to occur naturally as the skateboarding lends itself well to social bonds and friendship. Skateboarders encourage and push one another further. It's one of the few sports in which personal style carries at least as much weight as the content of performance. An appreciation not just for the what but also the how. 

Skateboarders have proven their ability to see new possibilities in their surroundings. Until very recently, they've just been testing the boundaries based on what is presented. It's time to use this knowledge that we've gained from our collective Skate Vision, and put it to use in designing the communities we'd like to live in. We should be building public spaces which serve skateboarders as well as the general public in positive and meaningful ways. There are endless routes to accomplish this goal. If you watch any skateboarding video, you'll see people skateboarding on benches, ledges, stairs, banked ramps, plazas, fountains, planters... What these things have in common are that they are all things which serve a useful purpose to a wider community. There is a way to combine skate-friendly design and architecture with structures and features that are vital to fostering healthy municipal growth and cohesion. We can continue to play cat-and-mouse games between security staff and skateboarders, or we can allow skateboarders to become involved in designing the landscapes they'd like to see - all while offering the general public a destination to visit and explore, to socialize and encourage a sense of shared identity. It is my firm belief that encouraging skateboarders to collaborate with disparate groups such as artists, community gardeners, youth organizations, and municipal leaders will likely result in stronger (and more interesting) communities.

"There's an intrinsic value in creating something for the sake of creating it ... There is this beauty in dropping it into a community of your own making - And seeing it dispersed and seeing younger more talented - just different talent - taken to levels you could never imagine."