Yeah, been revisiting an old park with a grass gap lately…looks like it has been nothing but mud for years. Total puddle zone this time of year, too.
Best avoided, really.
here is the overhead view of walthamstow - and yeah as londonskater said the budget got cut quite a lot - but even so i still think it cost around 50k ( i heard it was supposed to be 80+ in original budget). there were a couple of major design flaws in that certain bits were just not big enough and i had been bugging the council for years to add the red bits and finally they did it in December and while it doesnt look much it has made quite a difference, as we managed to get them to use some of the budget for a toddlers scooter park while the builders were on site. Council had got some new funding for tackling kids obesity - image for that is below - that was built by bendcrete and i think that cost around 30k for flat bank, bowl end and two pump bumps -. another reason was to try and solve the confrontation between skatepark users (skate, bmx, older scooters who do pretty much all get on together) and little toddlers on micro scooters and their clueless parents. (to be fair to bendcrete they did try to make it more skate-able by putting coping on the bowl end). reason it is so narrow as it was previously where two table tennis tables were and council said it has to fit on same footprint as the concrete base that was there (ie not allowed to concrete over any more of the park grass.
Haven’t read the whole thread, am in a hurry now but this guy Daniel Yabar designs some pretty cool parks.
True for basically every ramp or ledge for that matter.
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I’m no expert but West Park Plaza in Hull sounds a bit like what you’re talking about. Can’t find any better photos but this should give you an idea.
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that looks sick. i like the nipple 
@vital Interesting to hear the responses about Walthamstow. Never realised there were such problems involved.
@Che Belfast park looks promising, share some more images for this when you get them.
@Will Good shout, I’d found that image earlier - “Designed by Wheelscape, built by others” haha…
@Londonskater grass gaps have always been a terrible idea, along with faux bricks on banks, hips and everywhere you don’t want or need them. Still not sure about paving slabs in skateparks - I went the Soderlyckan park in Lund, near Malmo, over the summer and it has a load of slabs on the flat, which doesn’t always work unfortunately. Same for Micropolis in Helsinki, or what I’ve seen on Gravity’s site at the park in Gravesend.
Getting the scale of a skatepark right seems to be the hard part, along with 3 or 4 groups (skaters, scooters, BMX and occcasionally bladers) all wanting their voices heard and looking to get “their” obstacles and terrain installed.
How do you get the balance of space and obstacles right? Again, harking back to MIle End and how good the park is compared to the plans, which looked awful. @wayout, when you folks were in the planning process for Lewes, did it seem cramped or overdone to you at that time? The plan looks good to be fair.
Is it a case of making it look sparse to begin with? Or is that everybody wants everything in their park and it ends up falling short as a result?
Is it down to flow? Mile End (again) has all the main stuff around the outside, similar to Ballyogan in Dublin or Karlundborg (check OP). Anybody have an idea on how to get that right?
One thing worth mentioning re: Mile End - it can be incredibly busy but due to the layout and the way you kind of session it like a street spot, rather that do hero laps of the place, it means you can always get a session in where other parks might just be unbearable…
I’ll try and pop down at the weekend and see how it’s looking now, but it seemed pretty decent last time I was there. Not sure who actually built it.
I wasn’t in the planning process for Lewes. I don’t know who was, if anyone, but with that one three different companies all submitted a design and it was put to an online poll. That design won by a mile because like I said, it looks much more spaced out that it ended up being.
Now that I know the size of the park the other two probably weren’t much better tbh. This one got my vote but it probably would’ve had the same issues
Is that a big fuck off volcano stuck right in-front of the double set and adjoining obstacles?
Now, you see, I love quirky and inventive ideas in parks, but it’s hard to pull off. You can over analyse a layout and deem it either amazing or unskateable but when it’s a reality it can be totally different.
I really like when companies go a bit out there but it’s too easy get stuck with obstacles with no longevity or just a waste of space. Of course, the classic obstacles need to be there but if done inventively it can be much better and you won’t have a cookie cutter park. Ledges are the worst, as usually they are chucked in, around the edges without the thought of correct access, setup time etc. I’d like to see more parks set around real clever and quirky ledge configs.
Less is more, fuck the scooter kids out of the design by any means possible and space like stated by so many people goes under the radar too much.
I did a tour of Oregon parks while our local was being designed and I knew that the plans wouldn’t work 4 days in dude to too much being crammed in for “more for the cash” type bollocks. Plans got chose while I was a way in the end.
Take measurements of stuff you like too.
God, trying to think back nearly 10 years now. The whole thing killed skateboarding for me.
Getting the user group in check too regarding ability wise is one thing to think about. We had people thinking they could smith grind waist height ledges and skate 10ft vert bowls. Hence why we ended up with a dog shit bowl that collects teeth and bones.
Going back to the scooter kids, some youth worker drafted them in as it was going to tender and we had parents going to the papers complaining they didn’t get a say in the design and wouldn’t listen when you told them the process started nearly 3 years ago and the designs had been a work in progress before these kids had scooters. Can only imagine the amount of fly outs and jump boxes they would of wanted.
Just a talking point, longevity? What I mean is, do you really need Zero style double sets and rails that will get hero’d in the first 18 months then left alone. Is it better to have lower impact things like pier 7s and 3 sets that will most likely get skated more?
One last thing I remembered and wish we thought about before and this goes back to space too, is really trying to imagine the lines people will take and would it work when busy? We fucked that up and when the park has like 15 people on it you all crash where lines all cross at once.
Last I will read on this thread as I’m sat here plotting blowing up the cunting thing already! Ha
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Just do an exact copy of sibbarp
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Che who are you in real life?
I saw some proposed plans for that park a while ago, looked pretty fun
Haha, I’d change loads of that place but yeah, that idea is so fun.
Sorry for the delay- been travelling on business and I am a bit of a noob to this forum…
That’s a bit of a direct question- just some old fool (nearing 43) that lives on the outskirts of Belfast. I am guessing you are from Norn Iron too?
With a bit of luck the park will be finished by this time next year. If you google it there is a silver spade photo of a councillor etc. dated 1 Jun 2018, however ground has never been broken!
Belfast originally but I upped sticks to England 10 years ago.
Buuuuuuuump.
So I’ve been using my downtime to put together 3D plans, upload them to IG and sling a website together as part of a campaign to get a proper park put in place, along with approaching local councillors about this. The local town council want to install something substantial here as the park they’re looking for consulations about “lends itself to niche sports such as bouldering, skateboard and BMX”. They’re into the idea, open to it, just they need guidance and whatnot. Previous efforts in this part of the city have usually been modular, precast concrete.
Let me know what you folks think, good or bad, all critique is apprectiated.
https://www.instagram.com/blackrockskatepark/
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Looks rad! And actually a plaza with space and not all crammed in like other parks. Defo one for the skaters but knowing scooter and bmx lot they’ll want more transitions. Fuck em.
Really well spaced out for flat ground sessions 
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