I used to be a skater. “Used to” being the operative words. I found this out in early 2020 when I took my kids to the skatepark. It had been 20 years but I decided skating was like riding a bike – once you’ve done it once, you never forget. Well, skating is not like riding a bike. After giving the kids a demonstration of my prowess, and falling hard on my wrist, I discovered the ‘riding the bike’ parallel was painfully non-applicable. As one of the kids said, my wrist looked like a bent spoon. Broken in a number of places, it needed multiple surgeries and plates. A year later and I’m still getting physio.
My skating career might be over, but I still admire the sport. I love the interaction between the skater and the built environment. Who would have thought a plywood deck connected to four wheels could offer so many trick variations. Skaters will search far and wide to find the perfect combination of stairs, kerbs, plinths, walls or anything they can slide their deck on to create unique tricks. There’s a unique relationship between the architecture of public places and skateboarding that goes back to the origins of modern skating.
If anyone has seen the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys, you’d know that skating wasn’t always as radical as it is these days. The first skateboards were flat and the tricks were limited to manipulating the board on flat surfaces and were more about what you could do with your body whilst rolling along.
It wasn’t until the surf culture of California took a hold of skateboarding that it evolved into a more radical form. As far back as the 1960s, surfers would hit the pavement when the surf was flat and practice their moves on the various concrete ramps they found in and around the place. If you haven’t seen Dogtown and Z-Boys, I highly recommend it.
The movie details one important event that occurred in California that took skateboarding to the next level and in which architecture, or in particular landscape architecture, played a critical part. In the middle of the 70s there was a major drought in California, prompting those with backyard pools to drain them. Skaters quickly realised they could ride the kidney-shaped pools and it was much more like surfing, allowing speed and more vertical tricks. This has evolved into the skate parks that we see today. The skatepark brings together the architectural elements skaters search for and puts them all in one place.
But we need to go further back to discover why there were so many ridable kidney-shaped swimming pools in California at the time.
All of these pools can be traced back to one pool that found its way into California’s House Beautiful magazine. The pool was in a lauded garden that was famous in the world of landscape architecture. Its shape is not the classic kidney shape but it has the same biomorphic design and importantly it has a ramped edge that means a smooth surface from top to bottom (perfect for skating).
The designer of the garden and the now famous pool was Thomas Church, a landscape architect. Prior to designing the pool, Church had spent time in Finland exploring the works of the famous architect Alvar Aalto. Church visited Aalto’s Villa Mairea, which has a pool in a shape strikingly similar to the pool shown in House Beautiful.
The theory goes that Church was influenced by Aalto’s pool and brought the now-famous pool shape to California. The pool design crossed with the drought, crossed with the evolution in skateboarding all came together to result in the modern form of skateboarding and, yes,
the skatepark.
If you haven’t already signed the petition for Thirroul to get a skatepark, search for @thirroulskatepark on Facebook.
If it’s built, I’ll suggest the Council puts a big warning sign up to all mums and dads who think skateboarding is like riding a bike…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Wollen is the director of Wollen Architecture, an architecture studio with a focus on sustainable design. “Only build what you need to” is one of his driving mantras. He feels deeply his accountability, as an architect and environmental scientist, to work towards a sustainable future. When he’s not working, Ben’s enjoying the natural wonders of the Illawarra escarpment with his wife & kids.