
Confusion has simple but rad little plan for recycling an old skateboard into a concrete float. You can use the float to make more things to skate on, to wear out more skateboards, to make more concrete floats, to make more things to skate on…

Let’s see… What’s the least offensive joke I can make here? I think that was it. I wonder if this is Wet Willy’s water slide?
Photo by Wesley Chmielowski

Two photos of a spot that amazingly enough was not built for skateboarding. Storm water management done the right way, somewhere in Austin, Texas.
- Thanks to Brianna Vance for the photos.
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About a million years ago (10 or so, actually) I did a write up of concrete skateparks in the greater Chicagoland area for a pre-blog print issue of S&A. It was pretty dismal, especially coming from a Northwest perspective. In most cases the design or finish were flawed, often times both. Most spots weren’t built by actual skatepark builders. Some have expansion joints where the transition meets the flat, filled with whatever soft goo they use on sidewalks. Some even have brushed cement. That’s not to say you couldn’t have fun in those parks, because you are skateboarding after all. Since that time, Chicago got an adequate, professional, but not especially exciting park on Wilson, plus a prefab junker on Logan, and think some other satellite parks in the burbs, but again, nothing to write home about. Who knows, (I don’t) maybe there are a other new parks in the area that I don’t know about. Admittedly, I’m going on old information, although I did hit some more suburban spots in 2009. This new skatepark in Villa Park by Portland’s Evergreen Skateparks has a small-ish footprint, so it’s kind of hard to dazzle, but still it’s got to be a step forward for the state of Illinois. Hopefully this will open the door for other build/design projects in the area. Maybe not though, I heard Evergreen ran into some Union problems on the site, with picketing and what not. That’s Chicagoland for you. Big shoulders extend all the way to the burbs. We’re da Machine! Getting back to Evergreen, here’s another slick helicopter-dogcam edit from Robert Mcintosh. Bonus Effigies audio for “We’re da Machine” after the jump.
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Betonhausen is A D.I.Y. spot in Berlin funded by c-list energy drink. (But really, is there anything as an grade A energy drink?) It has an outdoor part that looks like it served as the concrete college. Check it out. They’ve added an indoor part as well, 3 videos after the jump. The best video in the series is part two, which features the construction, including huge chunks of styrofoam sculpted in place and used instead of fill dirt.
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Brianna Vance, somewhere in Texas:
Photo by Wes Chmielowski. Feeble. Say what you will this is the only time you’ll see me skating half naked. Took this photo for Creature they sent me a swim suit and I didn’t want to take a regular photo like all the other girls sent in of them just trying to look hot. I decided I was doing a skate photo. It is a skateboard company after all.
I asked her before posting it. She knows the context. She’s not a regular reader, but that’s no reason to be an ass in the comments people. Bonus non-objectifying shot after the jump.
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Over a year ago MC drew a comic that mentioned the possibility of the backyard ledge spot. Domi Gammon had already built one in his… well, it’s his parent’s house and it looks like the front yard, actually. He built it so he’d have someplace to skate when he visited his parents. Looks super solid.
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