Image via Complex Original
Even the worst skateparks can be fun. Skateboarding is all about creativity and making something out of nothing. We’ve been doing that in the streets for years. That being said, crappy or boring park designs represent a major missed opportunity. No matter what the budget or what the restrictions, there are creative ways to make a unique park that will draw skaters from far and wide to come check it out. This list of 30 Innovative Skateparks represents creative thinking that goes beyond the standard pyramid and quarterpipe designs so many parks rely on. Creativity and individuality is what skateboarding is all about and that should extend to our parks we ride in.
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Pietrasanta Skate Plaza
Location: Pietrasanta Italy
The city of Pietrasanta is known for its marble and is home to many sculpture studios. The city used leftover pieces of marble already shaped like quarterpipes, benches, and bumps to construct what is now a dreamland for skaters. Using industrial cast offs and fine materials is very innovative indeed.
Milton Keynes Skate Plaza
Location: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK
The central bus station at Milton Keynes has been a street spot for more than 20 years, and instead of building a new park in a new place, the city decided to improve the existing street spot by adding new ledges and stairs, creating an innovative skate plaza out of an already good skate spot.
Daybreak Sculpture Garden
Location: South Jordan, Utah
More than a dozen skateable pieces of art are spread along two paths in a Utah neighborhood to make up a park that skaters and others can enjoy in many different ways. By creating a space that is appealing to skaters and other community folk, this park is truly innovative.
La Fayette Skate Plaza
Location: Los Angeles, California
This small plaza style park is designed to be part of a larger city skatepark plan. It features a few obstacles and can support the skaters from the neighborhood it is located in. Sometimes small and simple is better. Those planning an additional skatepark for their town should consider something like the La Fayette skate plaza.
Kettering Skate Plaza
Location: Kettering, Ohio
It seems obvious to design a skatepark around street skating since that is how most people skate these days, but it took the vision and leadership of Rob Dyrdek to make the idea of a skate plaza a reality. The first plaza was opened in 2005 and values ledges, stairs and open space above transitions and flowy lines.
White Grounds
Location: London, England
Making use of an empty space under a bridge, White Grounds fills a tunnel with skatable obstacles. The tunnel keeps rain out of the park and shades it from the sun. Taking an existing space that was being neglected and making it into a skatepark is an innovative use of space and resources.
Rabalder Park
Location: Roskilde, Denmark
Conceived originally as a drainage system, Rabalder Park in Denmark evolved into a full-blown skatepark that can handle a 10-year flood. Skateboarders have always skated ditches, so it just makes sense to consider skateboarding in any kind of infrastructure project like this.
Lions Park
Location: Greensboro, Alabama
Designed by architecture students and built for just $25,000, Lions Park "is based on a series of thin concrete strips that fold across the landscape. Edges of the slab peel-up and slide past one another creating a variety of skating elements." Sometimes it takes outsiders to see new opportunities for skatepark designs.
Cardiff Barrage Skate Plaza
Location: Cardiff, Wales
Cardiff's Barrage Skate Plaza manages to pack a lot of skatable terrain into a small space. The layout allows for many people to be skating at once without bumping into each other. While this is a street plaza, there is enough transition around to keep the old tranny dogs from complaining too much.
The Plaza At Forks Skatepark
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
One of the first skateparks to include skatable sculptures and replicas of famous skate spots, Winnipeg's Forks Plaza incorporates trees and landscaping throughout to soften the hard edges of the skatepark.
Tetuan Skatepark
Location: Madrid, Spain
Replacing the typical pyramid centerpiece with a long ledge (which street skaters know is the real centerpiece of a skatepark) is but one of the innovations at Madrid's Tetuan Skatepark. The stairs are huge like out in the streets, and instead of poured cement, the entire riding surface of the part is smooth pavers like one would find in a plaza in the streets.
Daito Challenge Park Plaza
Location: Shimane, Japan
An open expanse of granite tiles, ledges, and banks, the Daito Challenge Park Plaza looks almost nothing like a skatepark. But the open space and design that more closely resembles a modernist plaza than a skatepark may very well make it one of the best spots in the world for street skaters.
Hood River Skatepark
Location: Hood River, Ore.
It is rainy in Oregon, so the city of Hood River added a roof to cover part of their skatepark. In addition to the roof, there is a gap at the park going over a small creek. Including existing natural elements and making a park ridable more often are both innovations we would like to see more often.
Edgemont Ditch
Location: Santa Teresa, N.M.
Although Edgemont Ditch is not technically a skatepark, it was built for skateboarding in addition to drainage. Governments could easily add skatable elements to new projects for much less money than a skatepark and it would likely make skaters happier about their unique new spots.
Templehof Plaza
Location: Berlin, Germany
Using stone from East Germany's Palace Of The Republic for much of the ledges and banks is just the beginning of the innovation at Templehof. The design is pure street with just ledges and stairs giving it a look of a natural plaza that just happens to be perfect for skating.
KAP 686
Location: Cologne, Germany
When Cologne's main street spot got shut down, the city, architects, and skaters got together to create a unique skatepark that mimics the type of terrain they lost. Essentially, it is a bunch of ledges and a few banks. Sometimes simplicity is what is innovative.
Falls Creek Park
Location: Marble Falls, Texas
This Texas park boasts one of the most unique features in any skatepark. The bowl-less corner resembles a Hot Wheels track set at an angle. In addition to the Bowl-less corner, there are other unique features throughout the park like granite ledges and local boulders incorporated into the park.
Austin BMX and Skate Park
Location: Austin
The newest skatepark in Austin forgoes the typical skatepark elements in favor of more open space to push and hit the ledges, rails, and three-sided pyramid. The park also incorporates a skateable piece of art by Chris Levack.
Target Plaza at Woodward West
Location: Tehachapi, Calif.
This small plaza at Woodward West packs everything a street skater could ask for into a small space. Cities looking to build a skatepark in a smaller space should look to this for inspiration.
Green Skate Lab
Location: Washington D.C.
The first "green" skatepark in the country is DC's Green Skate Lab. This gem was built by a volunteer labor force out of tires found in the surrounding area. The innovative process yielded a bowl that goes from 3-6-9 feet deep. Garbage as back fill just makes sense.
Ed Benedict Plaza
Location: Portland
Billed as an environmentally sensitive skatepark, Ed Benedict incorporates native landscaping and on-site storm water treatment and was built using recycled or sustainable materials. Some of the obstacles where designed as art pieces by Dan Garland.
Micropolis
Location: Helkinki, Finland
A park designed with street skating in mind, Micropolis looks more like an urban plaza than a skatepark. There is ample green space and mature trees mixed in with granite ledges, banks, and a bowl. It all makes for a more pleasant place to be than the average skatepark.
Steelpark
Location: Luleå, Sweden
Pro skater and landscape architect, Janne Saario used Luleå's steel industry as the inspiration for Steelpark adding pieces of the steel mill into his design including a giant ladle from the factory as a roll in and main feature of the park. Using unique materials from the local area is a good way to ensure a park has a personality of its own.
Woodward West Snake Run
Location: Tehachapi, Calif.
A snake run is one of the earliest features in a skatepark, but California Skateparks have pushed the design of Woodward's snake run to insane levels by mixing street and transition elements over the span of more than 1000 feet down the side of a hill.
Prissick Plaza
Location: Middlesborough, England
The levels of the Love Park fountain are so perfect for skateboarding that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was designed for us. Someone in England had the bright idea to recreate this feature as part of the Prissick Plaza.
Stoke-On-Trent Skate Paths
Location: Stoke-On-Trent, England
The idea to make a skatepark on a linear path instead of a fenced in square of concrete seems obvious, but the town of Stoke-On-Trent in England actually did it with their Skate Paths, consisting of a few skate spots along a path leading tho their huge skate plaza.
Pop's Park
Location: Philadelphia
Although most skatepark builders seem to want to build ever-gnarlier terrain, the designers of Pop's Park in Philadelphia kept fun in mind and built small, but creative, obstacles that can challenge and entertain skaters of all ages and skill levels.
Paine's Park
Location: Philadelphia
Many of Philadelphia's landmark street spots have been shut down but Philly finally has a big park in Paine's park that even utilizes some of the famous granite benches from City Hall.
Portable Concrete Bowl
Location: Dew Tour Events
In an effort to be less wasteful and create a bowl that evolves with each event, Spohn Ranch developed a concrete bowl made in sections that can be disassembled and reconfigured at each new site. Imagine if your local cement skatepark could evolve over time.
Annecy Skatepark
Location: Annecy, France
Carved into the side of a hill, the Annecy Skatepark has a street course built into a set of switchbacks that lead to the bowl at the bottom. This proves even the most difficult plot of land can support a skatepark.