Skateable Furniture

[digdoi]

As a skateboarder I find it awesome :rock on: :

Tom Hawes' project "came about by recognizing skateboarding as an unstoppable urban pathology."

Skateable Furniture is a range of benches that encourage skateboarding as a positive activity for youth to regenerate public spaces. The seven benches fit together in many different combinations, and the low back and fortified steel edges allow for many possibilities in terms of "skate-ability". The benches draw on the visual language of London and are designed to blend into both traditional and modern spaces.

"By virtue of its status as a misuse of public space, and because it is a symptom of defensive design, skateboarding is exceptionally good at drawing attention to the quietly exclusionary nature of modern public space," explains Hawes. "Older children and young adults are either not considered in urban planning or outright excluded from public spaces. Skateboarders add value to many unused public spaces and regulate possibly dangerous spaces with their presence."

"The design of public spaces needs to respond to the uses of it by the public. If young people are using these spaces for positive activities like skateboarding, then the design of these spaces needs to evolve alongside these new uses, not discourage and criminalize, alienating and socially excluding the youth."

From We-make-money-not-art (http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/007178.php)

[sigue2000]

'tock'....'clank' ... 'chchchchchchch'.... 'tock'

[MICHEL]

hmmm... I would rather say 'rollrollrollrollrollrollroll.... wuuuuuushhh... TAK... sssssssssssssssssssssssh... wuuuuuuuuushhhh... TAK.... rollrollrollrollrollrollroll....' :D
Nice bench Digdoi!

[jake]

Skateboarders add value to many unused public spaces and regulate possibly dangerous spaces with their presence."
[/url]


I would not totally agree to this statement. They can, as they do outside our front door, create an unfriendly and offensive public space. Our main entry is in an alley that has been converted to a gathering place for a restaurant in the same building as ours with benches and tables for eating. The skaters have taken it over and smoke, and cuss and say rude things to pedestrians. They also bang on the restuarants windows to startle customers. They leave crap laying all around, cigarette butt's, mountain dew cans, garbage and food smeared into the walkway. This is not typical I hope but it is an element that is associated with skateboarding. They have also destoyed all the limestone lintels in the alley with their boards.

So in this case they have turned a positive public space into place to avoid.

These are great looking benches.

[wegofaster]

Intresting thread.

[digdoi]

This is not typical I hope but it is an element that is associated with skateboarding.

It's sad but you're right, Jake. I was a full-time skateboarder for some years and I have to agree that it is associated to the sport not only by people in general but also for the skaters themselves. This have to do with the origin of the skateboarding - when it was really considered something outlaw -, but today it's unacceptable. :(

[jake]

We have a park for skaters, but they are going to close it because they are vandalizing it so badly. Kids want it, but then they don't respect it. I thinks it's a small minority that's making the rest of the skaters look bad.

I use to skateboard when I was a kid, but they were like 2x4s with steel wheels. :D

Zaha's CAC in Cincinnatti, Ohio has a concrete curved wall that runs through the lobby and penetrates the exterior wall into the street. They had to put the metal studs in it to keep the skaters off.

Here the articles about the skatepark.

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2005/09/29/opinion/times_editorials/d1ef8e41d8b35f368625708b0003ea5c.txt

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2005/09/28/columnists/mark_kiesling/7fc3b47b871c22a186257089007c266e.txt

[jake]

Here's a pic of Zaha's Skate Park!

[Hotrats]

The skaters have taken it over and smoke, and cuss and say rude things to pedestrians. They also bang on the restuarants windows to startle customers. They leave crap laying all around, cigarette butt's, mountain dew cans, garbage and food smeared into the walkway.

How many other youths do this that don't skateboard? What proportion of anti-social kids are skateboarders?? I can only talk about British skaters but,...

I would prefer my kids were out skateboarding and learning about their physical environment than stealing cars, taking drugs or playing with guns and knives. Skating is usually a positive activity.

One of the most underused and run-down parts of London with some of the most ugly examples of 60's brutalist architecture (the South bank) has been used positively by skaters for years and adds to the vibrancy (and dare I say it security - read. "defensible space") of the place.

People talk about 'designing out crime' - if people design urban spaces that are skatable (limestone curbs etc.) then they'll be skated on - it's a symptom of lack of foresite by the designer/planner.

I reckon it's a positive step to 'design-in' street furniture that is robust enough to be skated on and of course position it in an appropriate setting.

The real problem is anti-social youth as a whole (a small number of which skate).

Maybe skaters are associated with this activity as they are more visible in the public realm and less covert about their behaviour.

Maybe skaters in the US are different?? Jake you're right to be pissed off if kids are doing things like this outside your place. I hope it's just a minority.

[jake]

The real problem is anti-social youth as a whole (a small number of which skate).


I'm sure you are right about this Hotrats. I didn't want to say this and sound like an old fogie, which I am. Kids nowadays! :P

What I see happening with the skate park in my are is the kids are given a place to skate and they really don't use it or they abuse it becuase it's not as hip as skating in the street. The benches look great, but they might perceive these as too 'unhip' because they designed for them. Then it's off to find something else to 'grind'.

[ryo]

The benches look great, but they might perceive these as too 'unhip' because they designed for them. Then it's off to find something else to 'grind'.
mmhhh... :wondering
The 'outlaw' spirit is still alive??? :D

[primocordara]

mmhhh... :wondering
The 'outlaw' spirit is still alive??? :D

Just put a sign " no skateboarding here"... Skaters will surely use this bench then.

I once made a ramp for handicapped with an iron handrail in the entrance of a bank. By Monday it was completely twisted by skaters, one even crashed a window when the skate flipped off the handraill...

The handrail was repaired with bumps welded onto it! Handicapped and old people complained for this "strange" design of a hand rail with iron bumps!

[CrazyBelgian]

I used to be an avid skateboarder myself, and I must admit that 'street skating' was what I loved most. The problem with most skate parks in Belgium was that they sucked; they were either very poorly designed or consisted out of a bunch of half pipes, which can only be used by one person at a time.

In any case, I also remember that the skaters who caused all the trouble and vandalized places were usually not the ones that excelled at skateboarding. They were just posers with a skateboard who had nothing else to do.

[digdoi]

They were just POSERS with a skateboard who had nothing else to do.

This word explains all.