卡尔巴洛的滑板公园

The Skate Park in Carballo (A Coruña, Spain) appears as an extension of the public space that surrounds the Media Library in that village, offering the possibility of practicing some alternative sport that emerges strongly in the cities. From the point of view of urban insertion, the main intention was to dilute the border between the skating surface and the rest of the public space, so that the entire space could be read as unique, avoiding some ghetto or bubble sensation that usually present this type of parks. That is why we should call it skate-plaza.Thus, the integration of the tricks, access of the fire brigade to Media Library, stands, vertical connections, shade, water and benches are considered as an integrated artificial topography, in the same way that the pedestrian is protected from an eventual impact with the skateboards, sinking park´s height around 16 cm.

On the other hand, the layout of the routes and the access to the modules is produced from a continuous W-shaped sequence that avoids the crossing of the skaters and optimizes the production of tricks for both goofy and regular (left-handed and right-handed). The arrangement of two platforms at different heights links the kinetic energy capture modules (quarters and inclined planes), preserving the inertia of the skater when entering manuals,railings, drawers, roofs, hubbas and low-to-high. Dimensionally, the modules offer a scale accessible to both beginners and experts, avoiding a first feeling of fear when taking our first steps as skaters, while living together with advanced level riders.

The design and construction of a skate park or, as it was said, a skate-plaza,places us architects in an very interesting situation: from the design, our work is extremely suggestive due to the abstract geometries it manages and the challenge of melting public space, pedestrian and outsider, designing a necessarily versatile and symmetrical spot that balances the amount of energy-generating elements with the dissipators (where the trick is performed); from the execution, due to the handling that is carried out of the concrete in the construction of unusual geometries and extremely careful tangencies, which requires a high knowledge of the possibilities offered by the material, as well as solving delicate situations during the staking out  of the work. And above all, a design that does not condemn the use of the park the day after its inauguration, either due to the difficulty of the tricks, the urban atmosphere or its durability.