Archinect - News

Brooklyn group opposes new Tony Hawk-backed skatepark: 'Pouring concrete is Stone Age'

2024-04-08T11:58:00-04:00

The city has construction plans for Mount Prospect Park, once the site of a lookout station for George Washington’s army. About 40,000 square feet of the 7.79-acre park are to be turned into one of the largest skateboarding spots on the East Coast. Some nearby residents are fighting the plan. [...] They say the poured-concrete skateboarding facility would take up precious green space in a city that does not have enough of it.

A total of four skatepark designs are scheduled to be built in the Bronx and Brooklyn, courtesy of The Skatepark Project (or TSP). Costs for a new park at the contested Brooklyn location are about $100,000.

The Mount Prospect Park location calls for 40,000 square feet worth of concrete to be poured, leading to local protests recently. Hayley Gorenberg of the group Friends of Mount Prospect Park told the Times, “Paving green space isn’t acceptable to the community, and it’s not the way for New York City to look forward to a more resilient future. It’s backwards thinking.”

Tony Hawk is also involved in Peterson Rich Office and OSD’s new adaptive reuse design for the Shepherd Gallery and Art Center in Detroit.

Peterson Rich Office transforms former church into an inviting new cultural center in Detroit's East Village

2024-03-12T18:18:00-04:00

The adaptive reuse design for the Shepherd Gallery and Art Center inside the new Little Village in Detroit has been revealed ahead of its public opening on May 18th.

The project from Peterson Rich Office (PRO) transformed a 110-year-old former church into a new cultural center for the local Library Street Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to presenting art in the city's revitalized heritage spaces. It was executed at 16,000 square feet and culminates in two new galleries with a small library, classrooms, and workshop included for local community endeavors.

View of the Charles McGee Legacy Park and the Shepherd. Photo by Jason Keen. Courtesy of Library Street Collective.

In terms of its interior redesign, the architects chose to place an exhibition area in the transept mezzanine while making the altar below into another gallery open for performance and public gatherings. The church's other transept now houses a curated Little Village Arts Library space from Asmaa Walton. A landscaped...

Tony Hawk enters the metaverse with 'largest virtual skatepark ever made'

2022-07-19T19:13:00-04:00

After conquering the X Games and video games, Tony Hawk has set his sights on his next frontier: the metaverse. The legendary skateboarder this week announced plans to partner up with The Sandbox — an online game built on the ethereum blockchain where players can spend cryptocurrency to buy virtual land — to build the “largest virtual skatepark ever made,” the company said in a Wednesday press release.

Called Tony Hawk LAND, the virtual space is being developed through a partnership between Tony Hawk Inc. and The Sandbox. NFT production company Autograph will design purchasable avatars based on Hawk, along with his most iconic skateboards, equipment, and apparel, including a digital replica of the skateboard he used at the X Games in 1999.

Screenshot of the ramp-building feature. Putting those CAD skills to good use!

“I have been a fan of new technology all of my life — from the first videogames and home computers with CGI capabilities — so I am fascinated by the metaverse, and excited to bring our culture into the virtual landscape of The Sandbox,” skateboarding pioneer and entrepreneur Tony Hawk said in a statement.

Other recent metaverse creations and proposals that made the Archinect news included a virtual version of Liberland by Zaha Hadid Architects, BIG's virtual HQ for Vice, Grimshaw-designed blockchain spaces for pax.world, and this NFT of the Tower of Babel by Dewan.

Pr...

California's concrete skateparks come alive in a new photography book

2019-09-12T20:30:00-04:00

Released this month, California Concrete: A Landscape of Skateparks, takes the birthplace of skateboard culture and celebrates the dynamic landscapes created by Cali's expressive skateparks. Amir Zaki, creator of the book, is an artist and photographer who grew up skateboarding and has spent years photographing the built and natural landscape of California.

Tony Hawk, the legendary skateboarder, has contributed an essay to the new book. In it, he expresses how Zaki's photography captured his first memories of visiting a skatepark as a kid. Los Angeles-based architect Peter Zellner also contributed an essay in which he explores the origins of modern vertical skateboarding in the mid-1970s and the resulting skateparks that came out of that movement.

Ultimately, this book provides a beautiful collection of photography, architecture, and concrete landscapes, sure to capture the interested reader.