diy

West Covina Pool – southern California

Mike had this one going for a while and was one hell of a host. You can only imagine the look on the landlords face when she came by to show a potential renter a room and saw the pool drained! Lots of Action went down at this gem in West Covina. Rhino from Thrasher came by with crew including Grant Taylor and the scored a cover for the 30th anniversary issue. The night before Mike got the boot this session went down. Johnny Abernathy, Ben Butler, Erik Peters, and Robbie from pedro.

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…

Mr. Wilson Bowl – Kassel – Germany

Ever since I started skateboarding, it was not only about standing on a piece of plywood, but also about using all kinds of readily available material to shape your surroundings in order to be able to skate them – that’s what skateboarding to me is all about. The more skateparks that are being built, the harder it gets to deliver this message to the kids. It makes a huge different if you skate something that you built with your own hands. A homemade ramp can be all shitty and bumpy but it doesn’t matter because you designed and constructed it yourself.

Malmö DIY – Sibbarp Skatepark. 2011

Malmö DIY was the 3rd annual event at the Sibbarp skatepark in Malmö, Sweden. It’s not about the Sibbarp skatepark being D.I.Y., it was build by CONCREATURES, a skatepark construction company ran in Sweden by Dave Toms and Jezza from Australia. The D.I.Y. event focuses on things like grip tape workshops (hosted this year by Zarosh) and other small skater led organizations that are doing their own thing, big or small, without corporate funding. BBQ, bands, Servant shoes for sale on the hood of the Servant van.. you know… no corporate bullshit. Just a small skate event, everyone having a good time, with some full on skateboarding action.

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.

Campo Cuatro Casas: Baja, Mexico

The first time I heard about this magic place called “Cuatro Casas” was in 2009. I met my good friend Jose Noro in San Francisco for a one month road trip with the classic recipe of not having any fixed plans other than to skate, meet old and new friends and to generally see and experience as much as we can. – Lars Greiwe

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….

Channel Street DIY: San Pedro, California – shut down?

Caltrans is gonna shut down Channel Street for a year and do construction on the freeway for the freeway expansion. Already in the works is a new project at Peck Park that the local kids and the makers of Channel are helping design which they are trying to get done as soon as Channel closes which will be sometime next year.

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.

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.

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).

Skate Rebel Resistance

If you haven’t heard, there’s a war going on outside. Skate rebel armies are waging a guerrilla offensive against corporate colonialism. You see, after the Cold War ended the architects of the New World Order decided that they owned everything. The smoke had not yet cleared in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan before they built a mega state anchored in D.C. to buoy the interests of corporate fascism. They called it “free trade” and capitalism, but it was socialism for the world’s wealthy. Its supporters high jacked the media and sponsored a propaganda campaign to roll back any gains made in the arena of civil rights over the last century on a global scale. The New Order promised…