Underground Skate Plaza

A group called The Side Effects of Urethane working in conjunction with the U.K. skate rag Kingpin have designed and mostly built a skateplaza in some unused tunnels in London. These guys are the Dreamland of street parks, I’m declaring it. Make it so. They even followed the D.I.Y. ethic of funding and making it themselves on unused public property. Unlike London’s tradition of squatting however, they managed to get permission first. More London Skateplaza action after the jump. [Source: Sleestak]

The Side Effects of Urethane and the London Skateplaza

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with this skateplaza. It doens’t appear to have a name other than London Skateplaza. According to this 2006 Xremism
interview with Richard Holland, one of the plaza’s designers, the park was supposed to open in 2006. We’re a quarter of the way through 2007 and I’ve barely heard anything about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have let my industry rag subscriptions lapse. The interview is short but it provides the only background available on the process.

“I have kept the design process very low key, as in my experience, if you open up the process the design can be compromised by trying to incorporate all aspects of skateboarding. Sometimes it’s better to focus on one aspect and make that as best as you can.” Muses Richard.

That sentiment ought to ring true for Portlanders involved in the ever expanding number of cooks in the kitchen trying to horn in on the city’s skatepark design process for PDX’s system of parks.

Not much appears to show up about it on the web. Kingpin’s last mention of it appears to be an April 2006 blurb that is sort of a coming out announcement revealing it’s existence.

I was beginning to believe this was some sort of elaborate British equivalent of an April Fool’s joke until I found some more pictures in the form of a Flikr photo set by Gormski. I even got an email tip off from a Portland ex-pat living in London named Alex (thanks Alex!) saying it was due to pen in the end of April. Maybe there’s some sort of international calendar conspiracy to make me think this park is over a year old when in fact it opens April 2007.

I wish my town had unused public spaces of the type and scale of this one. Sure, Burnside is covered, but only on top. If there’s any amount of wind with the rain, it gets wet. This London spot appears to be open only in a small section. Makes me want to take up street skating, UK style.