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Design

The Time for Multi-Storey Skateparks Is Now

Grab your skateboard, rollerblades, BMX bike, climbing shoes, and boxing gloves, and head to the Guy Hollaway-designed Folkestone Sports Park.
All images courtesy of the artists

Pack your skateboard, and your inline skates, and your BMX bike, and your climbing shoes, and your boxing gloves—in fact, pack up all of the extreme sports gear you own because you could very well soon be making a pilgrimage to a new kind of Mecca: the world's first multi-storey, multipurpose skatepark. Designed by the architectural firm Guy Hollaway, and planned to break ground on the banks of the English Channel later this year, the Folkestone Sports Park offers a public space to roll, climb, and fight, in a corner of the city's urban center. With its wide range of active attractions all housed in Guy Hollaway's transparent, state-of-the-art building, the sports park aims to "attract both local youth and international competition" alike.

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For their design, the architects divided the 3,280 square foot facility into six stories. Three of the levels target a wheeled audience, alonsid a bowl floor, a flow park, and a street floor, all connected by a large industrial elevator and descending, skate-ready ramps. Athletes can even clamber up its 36' climbing wall or take a trip to the basement to spar in the underground boxing ring. In event of exhaustion—or a righteous thrashing—the park also offers a cafe, a training room, a youth room, and, perhaps most importantly, a first aid center. With the support of the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and the anticipated success of the plan's upcoming public consultation, the team at Guy Hollaway hopes to begin construction on their many leveled fun-house within the year.

In the meantime, here are some renderings to quasi-quench your adrenaline cravings:

Via HUH. Magazine

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