Skateboard Deterrents

[jack]

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

[Ryland Fox]

You are never going to stop it, just plan for it.

[Craig W. Arnold]

I think skateboarders add a beautiful human aspect to the landscape. The movement that is created by skating with the contrast of people sitting on a bench or children playing is a marvelous addition to the landscape. Skateboarding enhances the landscape architecture by utilizing the materials and creating function through form. Instead of the anti-sk8 approach maybe work on a design that creates a harmonious balance between aesthetics and activity. Create an edge where marks are minimal.

[Vance W. Hall]

I have seen a great application of a stone seat wall with the core drill holes from the stone quarry ( or replications to match) used face up as the skate deterrent. The 1 1/2″ drill punches look visually interesting, seat friendly and acted as a moderate grind preventer. It also did not deter the advanced skater who could glide past but prevented it from being the learning base for beginners. I think it was a good compromise.

[Jared Williams]

Yes, hideous indeed. It’s true that this will stop grinding, but not board slides or nose and tail slides. It might be noted that 4 more courses of cobbles and 95% of the skaters wouldn’t be able to access it, and it wouldn’t be an issue. Or a noticeable issue at least. If they can air that gap, they I say let them ride.

[Jared Williams]

It’s pretty easy to solve this with good design. As a former skateboarder with 25 years experience I can speak with some authority here. Skateboarders hate bad pavement, or cracks, or cobblestone or anything that isn’t perfectly smooth. The diameter of wheels has been hovering around 50mm for 10 years or so. That’s really small. They also use really hard urethane which is great on smooth pavement, but terrible on anything else. We are drawn to urban environments where the pavements tend to be perfectly uniform, and very smooth. Anything else completely takes the joy out of modern street skating. I’m not suggesting gravel, but a well placed cobble or two, or a feature in the paving where we would like to approach a wall completely throws us off…

[Jared Williams]

A 2″ radius isn’t quite enough. I would go with at least a 4″ radius. A 2″ radius would be fun and challenging! I’d still try to skate the 4″ radius, just to see what it was like and if I could come up with any new tricks that were perfect on a 4″ radius. Skaters (like much of humanity) are attracted to curves.

[Matt Kreitman]

Recent advances in stone fabricating technology enable my business, Groundfloor Stone, to provide a variety of aesthetic and cost-efficient antiskateboard solutions. We have a current order for six granite 18″x18″x72″ benches for a school district in northern New Mexico. These have been etched crossways end to end with a 1″ wide by .25″ deep “battlement” groove on the tops and sides. This makes them impossible to skate on. Delivered price is easily within the limited budget, and the benches create indestructible, cool-looking functional landscape furniture. We have another much larger state project coming up using the same benches, but which incorporates the same granite as cobble paving. The cobble provides an additional skate deterrent. But as we have the cobble pre-set on mesh, the installed price is about the same $$ as concrete paving.

[Andrew Spiering]

Do you have any pictures or a link to this product?

[Matt Kreitman]

We’re just having the antiskate benches fabricated from shop drawings. We import a lot of custom sized and finished cut stone from China – pavers, slab etc. A customer asked us to come up with something antiskateboard for this project. So we designed it to their size requirements, spec’d a groove size that would hard to skate on but still OK to sit on, then priced it out in a golden granite that matches other stone on the project. Production and shipping lead time is about 8 weeks from order, delivered to the job site. Its actually a pretty low cost option.
There are plenty pics of the cobble on mesh on our website.

[Sarah Sherman Picking]

Beautiful Detail!

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