Friday, February 23

Skateparks Deconstructed

By Jason Kuehn
EXPN.com

There are over 1,600 skate parks in the United States and over 2,600 in the world. It's hard to find a medium size city in the U.S. that doesn't have one either built or in the process of being built. Mark "Monk" Hubbard, legendary pool ripper and park builder, breaks it all down for expn.

EXPN: You have helped design and construct several of America's best skateparks. Places like Burnside and parks in Lincoln City, Newberg, and Newport Oregon. What do you think makes a successful skatepark?

Monk: The keys to a successful skatepark are finding the right people to design it and the right people to build it; instead of going through the bureaucratic process, piecing things together. You have some big construction companies that know the bureaucratic process but don't know skating. But if you look at it closer, you have to skate to know what's good and what's not. So probably the best thing is to find the right people to do it...skaters.

EXPN: How do you start a new skate park project?

Monk: The best way to go about it is to look at the site and try and use the features of the site to outline the shape of the park. A skatepark can be really good by just putting up transitions and quarter pipes, but we try using the maximum area and work with the natural surroundings; making the whole thing flow together. Then we sketch it out on site.

This could be your park.

EXPN: What comes next?

Monk: We'll draw up a concept by hand and go through maybe 4 or 5 of those between our seven-person crew. We all draw it up and we're like 'oh,no, how bout this?' or 'how about a hit here or this mini ramp here' and we all figure out what we want and come to a general consensus. Then we'll show that to the kids that helped get the park approved and then the city. Either they like it or they don't and they give us ideas on what to change. We'll do 2 or 3 changes until everyone's happy and then go from there. Ultimately, we have the last say since we're the experienced ones. The best way to design a skatepark, in my opinion, is to design build it - to design it as your building it. You can drop some conceptual drawings to start it off, but everything should be subject to change and everyone should be flexible.

EXPN: Why do you talk to the local skaters when you're the ones building the park?

Monk: We talk to the skaters of the town to try and figure out what kind of stuff they want. Skaters in certain areas want more rails and some want more hits. Some are more street oriented while others are more into big ramps. What we try to do is design it so everyone is happy. Mix it up so there is a little of everything.

EXPN: So then what happens next? Start digging it out?

Monk: We put in the drainage system. We figure out the low points so that we're not running into problems down the line. Then we start shaping it out and start mapping out the quarterpipes, tranies, stem walls, and ledges. We'll start one quarter pipe and figure out how fast you're gonna be riding down it, what your going to be heading towards, and what your going to need at the other end to accommodate the speed. We redraw the site to show the city and get final approval. We then form it up with transitions, cut templates for the walls out of plywood, stick those into the ground and backfill or compact the dirt in. Next, we rebar and bring in a pump truck to spray the cement in. It's just a regular concrete pump hooked up to a giant air compressor that takes all air out of the concrete, pressurizes it, and shooting it out. We leave it until it's set up a little bit before we shape and smooth it out. The sprayer made it a lot easier for us. The first park that we did together, Burnside, was pretty much bags of concrete left over from Ross Island Cement. Newberg we sprayed the whole thing, using 750 yards of concrete. Sometimes when we're cementing, someone will come checking out the park and their dog all of a sudden jumps out of the truck and runs through the fresh concrete. Then we're chasing the dog around and running through the concrete; it's a big mess.

Monk's big air at Rain City.

EXPN: How long does a park usually take from start to finish? What does it cost?

Monk: Rule of thumb is 10,000 sq ft. will take around 9 weeks to build and costs around $12 to 15 per square foot. The most expensive park we did was Newberg at 27,000 sq.ft. It cost $320,000.

EXPN: So the city funded everything?

Monk: Yeah, the city funded everything. There was a lot of donated materials; free rebar donated from steel factories and concrete at cost. We can build a better park for less money by getting the community involved. You'd be surprised how much the community really gets behind park projects and donates materials. There are times when random cement workers or construction guys that live in the city show up and want to help even if they're not skaters. They want to help because it's a positive thing and benefiting the community by giving kids something to do. Skating is getting really popular. More and more people are getting into individual sports so they can do their own thing and not have a coach telling them to chase a ball around. I grew up really loving soccer and all that, and most of my skater buddies like soccer but there's something to say for individual sports when you just do it your own way. There's no rules, no game plan.

EXPN: What do kids need to do to get a skatepark in their town?

Monk: I think the first step is to find a grownup that is into their cause. Someone that knows the bureaucratic routes of the system: how to form a petition and find sponsorship. There's ways now where you can get all your buddies from school and approach the city council or just write letters to a council member. Get together with the owner of a skate shop and have them approach the city council as a business owner. It's getting easier and easier to get parks approved and funded. There is everything from community funded skateparks to government grants, urban renewal, city planning money...there's many different ways to go about it and your bound to find a way to make it happen. Some of these cities getting parks are really small. We built a park in Aumsville. There are 3000 people in that town and we've actually raised their tourist population with the new park.

EXPN: What's up with Oregon having the best skateparks?

Monk: I think Oregon is a lot more liberal. Seems like they figured out how to do things the right way instead of the red tape bureaucratic way. Oregon has more hippies in the system than any other state.

EXPN: Was there a law in the last couple of years that made skate parks less liable for personal injury?

Monk: Skateboarding has been declared a hazardous sport, like motorcycle riding. If your on a board, you should know it's dangerous and accept any consequences. You can't really sue anybody unless they forced you to ride it and you hurt yourself. This change in the law made it easier for parks to exist.

EXPN: So how many years have you been riding?

Monk: I've been skateboarding for 25 years; since 1975. My first skateboard was from 7-11. It was a fiberglass board that pictured a guy on a motorcycle. When I was about 10, I had three boards just from trading stuff. Everyone called me the skateboard kid. I knew from an early age it was my own thing; my own outlet.

EXPN: So what's your sponsorship history?

Monk: I didn't get sponsored until I was 25. I never looked at sponsorship as a goal or anything but the free product and stuff is nice. I've been officially with Independent for 5 years but they been giving me stuff since I was 15. I just never considered myself being sponsored by them. I knew the team manager and he just flowed stuff. Sponsorship is weird now because everyone is just so hyped up on it. I'm more of a low-key skater, but gear is gear and fortunately I do have sponsors now, I skate for Empyre Skateboards, Independent, Spitfire, and Zumiez Skate Shops.

Rain City's first day.

Expn: So talk about the new Seattle park that we're at right now.

Monk: It's the first urban indoor skate park Seattle's ever had. Rain City is 12,000 square feet. It has a vert ramp, (the one they used at Slam City Jam), and a big street course with a concrete floor we poured that is smooth as glass. Its something Seattle has needed. Today is the grand opening and I think they had 75 people get memberships in the last 2 hrs. I don't think they're going to be able to handle all the business. They could build another skatepark right across the street and it would be just as packed. It's indoors so you can skate when it's raining...like right now.

Check out the photogallery from this article