Many traditional sports typically operate within a set of rules on a regulated ‘court’. Skateboarding is different, it can be done anywhere with a hard surface, skateboarders often interpret the urban environment in creative and unique ways which are personal, stylistic, and technical.
© Marcel Veldman
The Nike skate landscape is an authentic and inclusive location specially designed to provide skateboarders with a stimulating creative canvas. The diffused edge between skateboarding forms and the public realm identifies skateboarding as a borderless activity. This new kind of hybrid zone is inviting for all users and is a progressive approach to public space, leaving a legacy for others to follow.
© Marcel Veldman
It has been named a skate landscape because of its combination between traditional- and skateboard architecture. The skate landscape is intended as a public space that incorporates various skate-able elements that are based on topologies that have shaped skateboarding over the past decades, and as such, create a new paradigm in landscape architecture.
© Marcel Veldman
The Aalto sculpture is the centerpiece and an iteration of Rich Holland’s installation in the Kiasma museum of modern art – The form of the ‘kidney blobs’ is inspired by Alvar Aalto’s seminal 1939 Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, Finland, which features the world’s first kidney-shaped swimming pool. According to Avery Trufelman @ 99% invisible (Episode 370) this inspired a whole stream of bowls in California that were skated on by the early pioneers of skateboarding. Essentially, the negative space of such bowls is the form of the Kidney Blobs. The hat dish is inspired by a public sculpture in Israel’s Plaza in Copenhagen (Cobe + Sweco).
© Marcel Veldman
The skate landscape is a continuation of exploration on how skateboarding can be intertwined into our cities, it is in contrast to fenced or segregated skateparks, skate plazas, and the idea that skateboarding should be done in a specific enclosed space.
© Marcel Veldman
The landscape is freely accessible daily.
© Marcel Veldman
© Marcel Veldman
Project Info
Architects: F31
Area: 2300 m²
Year: 2021
Photographs: Marcel Veldman
Category: Installations & Structures, Skatepark
Conceptual Direction: Marije de Haas
Design & Conceptual Direction: Rich Holland
Structural Design: Bedir Bekar
Architectural Historian: Iain Borden
Skate Landscape Contractor: NineYards
The Bounce Sculpture: iamrubensanchez.com
Nike Sb Lead: Nike
Workplace Design Director: Nike
Project Manager: Nike
City: Hilversum
Country: The Netherlands
Nora is an architect and editor with a degree from Pratt Institute. She bridges design practice and architectural criticism, documenting contemporary urban transformations through compelling visual narratives.