VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York
Abstract
Skateboarding is diversifying and gaining popularity amongst women and girls, neurodivergent, gender diverse and disabled folks. It is a self-paced, unstructured sport, tied to the urban environment, and is relatively affordable and accessible. There is increasing recognition of the social and cultural value of skateboarding in cities (Borden, 2019), as an activity that activates underutilized public spaces, and could contribute to making spaces safer for other users (Eden, 2016). It could be argued that a liveable city is a skateable city. Despite this, the planning and design of urban spaces typically either overlooks the potential program of skating (missing opportunities to make spaces skateable), or actively defends against skating, in the use of hostile metal ‘skate stoppers’ on ledges and furniture. These approaches work to relegate skateboarding to the confines of skateparks, but in Aotearoa New Zealand there is a shortage of dedicated urban skateparks, and most of the existing ones are outdated, weathered and not fit for purpose.
This paper presents a collaborative project from Wellington, in Aotearoa New Zealand, which involves local government, designer-researchers and the skateboarding community working together to involve skaters in the redesign of an important but problematic central city skatepark. The project centers the voices of skaters, acknowledging their skills, expertise and experience, in order to create a future city that supports and fosters skate culture, as an exemplar of an inclusive, and collective approach to design and planning, that recognizes the valuable cultural and social contribution that skateboarding makes to a city. Borden, I, Skateboarding and the City: A complete History. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019.
Eden, Gustav, quoted in Free Skate Magazine, 2016. https://www.freeskatemag.com/2016/11/09/inside-man-gustav-eden/
Dr Rosie Scott is an interior designer, painter and educator based in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a Senior Lecturer in Design for Social Innovation at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Rosie has a creative practice PhD from RMIT University, and has taught across interior design, architecture and design innovation in Australia, New Zealand and New York, where she held the position of program director for the MFA interior design at Parsons School of Design. Rosie’s teaching and research interests include design justice; co-design and interior-painting.
Alexi Trenouth is the play and active recreation partnership lead at the Wellington City Council and collaborator on this research project. Alexi leads the engagement between the Wellington City Council and the skating community of Wellington, including creating the successful ‘We Skate Pōneke’ campaign. She is an experienced project manager with a passion for community and stakeholder engagement, and experience working in the government, NGO and private sector. Alexi is a qualified Project Management Professional (PMP) with a Marketing/Events Diploma from the Open University Business School and an MA from Edinburgh University.
Max Olijnyk is an Australian writer, editor, photographer, dad and skateboarder based in Wellington, New Zealand. Max is the president of the Wellington Skateboarding Association, a passionate advocate for the value of skateboarding and collaborator on this research project. Max has a Masters in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University of Wellington. His writing has been published in The Age Melbourne, Broadsheet, The Guardian, Monster Children, Jenkem, Free Skate Magazine and Vice. Max’s first book ‘Some Stories’ was released in 2016.
8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Thursday 15th June, 2023