concrete

The Beauty – DIY Zürich, Switzerland

After finishing THE BEAST this fall, for all of us it was as clear as a backside air that we needed a winter residence to pass this cold, ugly swiss winter. So please say hello to THE BEAUTY!

As we had finished the first building step, THE BEAUTY was ready for her first action filled night. A “MOTÖRHEAD ONLY” playlist, a bucket full of cheap, heated red wine and a good crew of friends was all we needed for an epic session.

Praca Duó Project, Rio de Janeiro

Mattias Nylen is a gnarly bowl and vert skater who works part time building concrete parks in Sweden. He recently flew down from Malmö, Sweden to Rio de Janeiro and has been renovating the Praca Duó Project, currently with a “shark fin”. “My friend Fabio in Rio showed me his local bowl which was super slow with some weak mellow trannies and asked if we could do something about it. So we built a vert extention and it turned out really nice but we still didn’t have much speed to hit it so we decided to build a taco thing to carve and pick up speed for the extention. While we put up the bricks for the structure we took a break had some beers and I got the idea, “let’s make a hip on it so we can still carve it.” So what was gonna be a taco tuned into a sharks fin. It was real hard work with very basic tools, all hand mixed but a lot of locals helped out, even the tranvestite street whores wanted to help mixing hahahaha. The thing works well and is real fun. If you are in Rio go to Praca Duó in Barra da Tijuca. Check it out!”

Skatepark of Ayacucho – Peruvian concrete

When I arrived in Ayacucho, I was invited with Bruno (Concrete Dreams) and Benoit (BRUSK) to build a mini-ramp for Mama Alice, a dutch NGO which works with children and wanted an infrastructure for teenagers. I used to organize concrete skateparks workshops in Belgium, and we did the same here (http://www.brusk.be/home/spip.php?rubrique19). I met a girl and decided to come back and try to live my life here. It was four years ago now, my Peruvian child is two…

Lankow Bowl – Germany

Lankow skatepark, located about 1.5 hours east of Hamburg in Northern Germany is one of the newest skateparks recently completed by Minus Ramps & Pools.

Mellowpark: DIY Berlin

A short view on the Mellowpark bowl project in Berlin, Germany. With helping hands of the locals the bowl was finished in the spring of 2011.

The Maya Pool (DIY Backyard Pool)

I think it’s a dream of every skater to have his own ramp at home. Sure, I have my own ramp at home. Sure, it’s a crazy big ramp, half bowl half mini ramp, etc. But sure its not a pool….

Porte de la Muette: Paris Concrete Bowl

How can a Bowl be transformed from a certified piece of shit into a deep and sweet reason to visit Paris? Skater wise naturally you’d say that it is alway good to ride those smooth sidewalks they get here and to jam (sometime literally!) into the traffic of the big avenues. But after sometime you can be bored of some of the humans living in Paris… ego trip on any levels can be really disturbing for a good ride. And you suddenly realize that there is nearly no tranny in town, this fact finally leads you to leave town in search of a good pool to fill your addiction to adrenalin.

OWL BOWL opening – Cologne, Germany

October 1st was a momentous day in Cologne with the opening of the first concrete bowl in Germany’s fourth largest city. Built by IOU Ramps and the local skaters of Cologne, the OWL BOWL is located at the NorthBrigade Skatepark, which has been open since the 1980s. Skaters from around Germany showed up for the opening party which was graced with sunny skies, which at this time of the year is a treat, as there was just as much chance the rain would shut down the event.

DIY Willits – California

This is a home made pool with obstacles around the deck, somewhere in the wooded mountains of Willets, CA. The pool is real good – an amoeba with a death-box in the deep, shallow stairs, and pool coping all the way around… except over the shallow stairs where there is river rock mortared in for coping (up the ante!). This pool is not the easiest pool to skate. I have skated backyarders that are easier, but it is great nonetheless.

BERGFEST: Battle of the Monster Bowl – July, 2011 – Münster, Germany

The concrete bowl at Berg Fidel in Münster, Germany was built in 1989 and marks the early development of concrete bowl skateboarding in Europe. It was the same year Titus held the world championships in Germany, and pros from America like John Cardiel, Matt Hensley, Chris Miller, Christian Hossoi and Danny Way all have skated the Monster Bowl in it’s early beginnings. 22 years later…

Wollmatingen pool: Konstanz, Germany

The bowl is located in Konstanz. The construction company is Bowl Construction from Switzerland (they also built Hard, St. Gallen and München Hirschgarten to name the good ones).