The shot in the top frame of a newly completed skatepark in the UK looked pretty clean and made me want to find out more about the spot. In the course of looking it up I saw that the builder Four One Four Skateparks, are using the CNC process to cut transitions and horizontal some supports, especially on bowl corners. It’s interesting that they use a stepped completely horizontal approach in those bowl corners. Notice that where the surface meets the back braces are not perpendicular. Instead they rest on two adjacent corners. I’m not sure if that makes in difference in the longevity of the bowl, but it’s got to make the design and assembly process a hell of a lot faster. I’ve always held wooden bowl builders in high esteem, and this approach means any monkey could assemble it. It’s a case of nostalgia vs. progress, but I can’t imagine there are that many ramp builders out there with access to big enough CNC machinery. Some of the shots on the site make it look like the surface isn’t included in the CNC process though, so there’s still room for John Henry on the ramp building floor. This park is part of “building 2” at Adrenaline Alley in Corby, England.

We went to the new skatepark in Happy Valley, Oregon last night. This detail of bizarro Rich captured in panorama mode actually does a good job of representing our disjointed session there. Not visible in this shot are the 30 some odd kids roaming the perimeter. Imagine your entire peripheral vision filled with kids on skateboards, scooters, wiggle sticks and bikes, all about to run into you. It was pinball city.

Evergreen Skateparks is making progress on the Happy Valley skate spot. It looks like it has a couple interesting features already. They are splitting the construction updates between Facebook and their official site.

The Kings Highway DIY project in St Louis is scheduled to be torn down within a year as the 76 year old bridge overhead is being demolished. KHVT (Kingshighway Vigilante Transitions 501c3) organizers are working with the city to fundraise and sanction the first public free skatepark in the city.

To ensure that the skateboarders of St. Louis will still have a place to skate, KHVT must act quickly. We are working closely with St. Louis City’s Land Re-utilization Authority (LRA) to find small, unused city owned properties to be transformed into free, public “skate gardens.”

As of now, KHVT is $33,000 short of the $50k they need to build this first spot. And that’s where the Kickstarter campaign comes in.

Evergreen Skateparks recently broke ground on a 4500 square foot skatepark in Happy Valley, Oregon. I can’t find a design for this anywhere, and most of the pictures that turn up in a Google Image search are old concepts attributed to Newline that appeared here on S&A back in 2009. Newline still has revised plans on their website. What happened is anyone’s guess, but Oregonians are happy to keep it local.

Bradenton, Florida has a relatively new Team Pain skatepark on the riverwalk. It’s mostly waist high or under, with the exception of a 10ft or so vert wall on one end of the park and a large bowl on the opposite. The park is long and narrow, dissected in the middle by an overhead highway bridge that crosses the river. As with Louisville, KY, it’s more or less across the street from the hospital. I’m not sure if they do that on purpose or not. It’s on a stretch of land that would otherwise most likely be vacant, which means plenty of room for expansion! The non-skating locals I spoke with are very pleased with it, and consider it a destination worth hanging out at just to watch and enjoy the location. More photos and a video skate through after the jump.

Phase one of Gold Hill, Oregon’s new skatepark in memory of Tom Fish, has been completed. It’s a Dreamland project. It looks fully rideable now, but of course the grand opening is set for April 2nd.

[Source: ABC KDRV ]

The new skatepark at Schiffler Park in Beavertron, Oregon is officially open. Video barge courtesy of K.C. after the jump.

– Thanks to Mike Estes for the photos.

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.

Well, the skatepark isn’t quite funded yet, but the web site is up.