In the summer of 2011 the news that the beloved BLACKCROSSBOWL was to be destroyed came true and plans were soon put into place to find a new space to build. After some intense dealings with permits and raising money the Basel crew, motivated as ever, started digging, laying iron and troweling concrete in the waste land around the port area of Basel.
AK-55 skateboarding is the first skate and surf hostel and school in Spain. When the project is completed it will be 1200 square meters (13,000 square feet) of pure skate! There will rooms to stay, a pool, beach and skateboarding!
It´s been around ten years ago since I first met Fernando. He was visiting our common friend, Pipas, in Switzerland and they came over for a skate session in the barn. We did not talk much back then and we didn´t have a real connection. He was mostly sitting somewhere drawing in a notebook, while everyone else got stoned when not skating. When dinner time came he sat on the side picking a raw cabbage and I remember asking him what was up with that. He told me he was as a raw foodist and how he got into that.