Downtown Skatepark Idea Space

Skaters like myself are not looking for complicated obstacles as much as functional flow design. Generally there are cement parks and pre-fabricated parks. A pre fab park should allow skaters to rearrange ramps but it doesn't. That leaves us with a cement park which it looks like the mock design is showing in the plans. So here are my ideas that work off of the concrete design. 1) The concrete should be smooth. As bad as it sounds, I can count more than a few parks right off the bat that just never started with a smooth concrete foundation. Because it's very rough, it basically negates the reason these cities even put in skateparks. 2) In my opinion all skateparks would be better with lights but I understand that it depends on the location. It's a nice option to skate after a day on the job or at night. 3) Some skateparks leave flatground areas for games of SKATE. Don't leave a big area for this. Skaters skating flatground should learn how to use the park obstacles for speed instead of needing huge runups. I generally see these as space that wasn't utilized. Like seeing too much blank space. 3) It's only getting hotter. Leaving an area for shade is a good idea but it shouldn't be covering a ramp. I notice myself telling people who are sitting down to move because they are on skateable features. These are pedestrians more than skaters but people living near skateparks tend to hang out there whether they ride something out there or not. I like the idea of giving some type of bench to sit on but its better on the outskirts of the park and to also to have them skateable. The way it's designed with the bench that is covered by an awning looks great. I can still imagine people will still end up sitting on the box on the opposite side of the skatepark. 4) Is the rock pit necessary? I've heard some complaints on Grant skate park in Chicago and they center around the waste of space of the rock gardens. They have 3 and one is an area that is not skateable but is in the middle of the park. Once again, it goes back to the idea of blank space. Aurora's Phillps park is a great park to look for examples of good flow, shade close to the park to get out of the sun, places for people to congregate that are on the outskirts of where the activity is happening, and moderate sized features that aren't too small.