Skatepark advocates help young skaters build safe, legal sites where they can cut loose—and maybe overturn a few stereotypes.

Source: ARCHITECT Magazine
Publication date: September 1, 2007

By Amanda Kolson Hurley

Peter Whitley is the author and designer of the Public Skatepark Development Guide and a board member of the group Skaters for Public Skateparks.
Photo: Stewart Ferebee

The new West Side skate park in Albuquerque, N.M., could get any skateboarder's adrenalin pumping. For fans of the angular, “street” style of skating, there are banks, walls, ledges, and stairs that mimic the feel of a downtown plaza; in another area, a dogbone—two deep bowls connected to a third by a one-of-a-kind, skylit ¾-pipe—caters to fans of the more fluid, dramatic transition style (known in skaterese as “tranny”).

West Side opened in March with one instant proof of its skating cred: Professional skateboarder Dorian Tucker helped design it. But West Side has earned a different kind of credibility, too—from the architectural establishment. It is featured as a case study in the 11th edition of the Architectural Graphic Standards, the industry bible published by the American Institute of Architects.

“It's a big boon to the acceptance of skateparks as a legitimate design specialty,” says Greg Miller, principal landscape architect at Morrow Reardon Wilkinson Miller in Albuquerque, who designed the park in collaboration with Tucker and ARTIFEX Skatepark Environments of San Diego. “[Skateparks are] not so fringe anymore,” Miller says.

Vancouver, Washington sits on the bank of the Columbia River just across from Portland, Oregon – a region with many communities establishing top notch skatepark facilities.

Clark County and the city of Vancouver consolidated their respective parks departments into the joint Vancouver-Clark Parks & Recreation Department (1997). The first piece of their skate terrain puzzle was established in 1998 – when public skateparks were in their infancy. As with any version 1.0, aspects of that initial offering have proved to be valuable as a learning tool – which factored into the implementation of the next skatepark.

While the finishing touches on that second skatepark have just been completed, the visionaries in Vancouver / Clark County P&R are in the process of several additional skatespots: one completed, two currently under construction, and one to be built in the near future. In fact, skateboarding facilities are being considered for every new public park in Clark County during the master planning process that is currently underway. This mix of larger skateparks and smaller skate opportunities is a beautiful model – one that many communities would be wise to pay attention to.