New skateparks and plazas

this post right here is the truth. all of it. fuck all parks have a decent hip. i could retire with a nice long mellow ledge and a decent hip. maybe a manny pad.

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Is this on the same area of the current park?

Walked past it when I was down visiting my mate Nathan last summer. That design is definitely trying to cram far too much in

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Not new anymore but I don’t think this was ever posted in here - Hove Lagoon Plaza down on the south coast. Another Maverick park, we worked very closely with them to try and get more of a plaza thing going. Has a pump track and roller rink type flat area as well and in a lovely location. Lights on till 10pm

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That looks absolutely perfect. You could session that every day and be very happy.

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That looks fantastic. Quite a fan too of the soft multi-colour of the concrete too - gives off a kind of UFO crop circles vibe.

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Yeah it’s great. Can be a bit chaotic when there’s a load of small kids but where isn’t. I think too many park companies try too hard to create something that just looks cool and unique in a CAD drawing, without enough consideration to how it skates. The simplicity of this place forced Maverick to find some different ways of making it stand out, which they smashed with the concrete colouring

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I’m glad people are incorporating colour and design into parks.

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They did the same at Cogan a little park near here but it’s now 100% graffiti covered anyway.

This looks stunning


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Absolutely. We have been working on refurbishing our local indoor park for a couple years now and working on the park design with the committee of the association is such a headache.

Before drawing anything, I analyzed every park I’ve ever skated (and that’s over 130 parks) and came to the conclusion that what works best for most people is having well built, low impact, basic obstacles in a wide, open space, with transitions here and there so you have good lines.

Meanwhile, the kids in the committee all learnt how to draw shit (I mean that literally) in SketchUp and it seems like they’re making a portfolio for a Cirque du Soleil skatepark design contest. It’s killing me. What’s even worse is that most of those kids are products of their environment (in a bad way), they were all lucky enough to grow up close to a big indoor park, started skating there and never went anywhere else, which really reduces their knowledge of what works and what does not work in a skatepark.

At the end of the day we vote for what project is best with majority rules and there’s an army of those stubborn, ignorant kids and I really feel like we’re wasting time and money but I can’t give up.

This project has been killing me. The further we go, the more I like my grind boxes.

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Basically, start off the design with a supermarket car park, add in a max of 5-6 ‘things’ and you’re about there.

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Absolutely.

This 100%

You should be a consultant.

In, fire 30% of the workforce, new logo, boom! Out. You are now a fully trained management consultant.

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I used to be, but it was like working on the set of The Apprentice so I quit. Not totally sure what you meant though.

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Excellent :rofl:

IMG_5393

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That’s a thing - how many obstacles or features does the average skatepark user use? For me, if there’s a miniramp or a bowl, that’s all I skate. I never touch the street section. Other people are the same about ledges.

I’ve never seen a park that has more bowl skaters than street skaters but I get where you’re coming from

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I think skating is like 2 different sports for many people, and street skaters are the big majority. But if I was designing the smallest, cheapest skatepark ever, I’d focus on having one great street feature and one great transition feature. For transition I’d look for a combination of easy to learn on plus challenging for more advanced skaters. Maybe a 4-5ft mini with 6ft step up, a 6-8ft midi with a 4-5ft step-down, or a bowl with a vert extension.

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Parks should choose a style/theme and go to town on it and make it the best of that style it can. Even pick an obstacle and make that the theme. So in result you’d get a crazy architectural ledge plaza in one town, An amazing linked up ramp/bowl in the next one, imaginative driveways and banks in another and one with crazy bumps, humps and nipples in another. That would inspire locals to tour around their areas and mix it up. Otherwise we just get carbon copies of generic parks because you’re trying to shoehorn everything you think you want in to one design. It stunts creativity.

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