Skate Hate

 We all remember the 1991 movie Point Break. Swayze, Nixon masks and surfing was the central meat of the story, but deeper down the idea of a group of people with adrenaline on the edge of their breath and a board underneath their feet to do something about it with has for a long time been a dream for many people.

I myself spent a fair amount of time trying to skateboard when I was a teenager and became all too familiar with the rough planes and harsh edges of a South London landscape and many a bruise and graze, scars lovingly given to me from these surfaces, became the majority of my achievements during this period. It was during the short cruises and ollie attempts that I got to know my local suburban environment comprehensively, something I neither appreciated or realised at the time. What would perhaps before have been a characterless surface, suddenly awoke beneath you as the textures ran through the board and into your body as you read and dominated the industrial braille and surfaces, what was once a forgotten element of a bigger architecture suddenly became a platform for your own expression.

Surprising it would seem then that this ideal is widely discouraged, as architects, planners and developers frequently design and detail architecture and urban landscapes to fortify them against the simple act of skating.

Take for example the new Croydon council offices built next to the old establishment at Taberner House, the form is slanted and the appearance is transparent, a classic example of taking a step away from large columns and dominance architecture of old town halls and power houses and instead taking a leap into utilising glass and playing with light to encourage an honest relationship with the public they hope to inspire. An enjoyable piece of architecture, sure, and one would be quite safe in assuming that skaters would not hope for much accomadation out of such a building, but follow the external elevation around to Fell Road and you notice a glimmer of opportunity. Alas, disappointment. For what would otherwise be quite frankly a run of boring planting beds, but a fantastic "grinding" spot for skaters, have been detailed with a large ball bearing pinned at their edges to prevent such shenanigans, which really just begs the question, why go to such lengths to prevent this common recreation?

Rather than embrace the reality that this particular element of design was likely to be adopted and enhanced by skaters for its friendly flat planes, it has been forced to become yet another glorified rubbish bin for people walking to and from East Croydon and Fairfield Halls. There are bigger problems within architectural design than just skaters, like materiality and the modern human scale, yet the skaters seem to always come up against the toughest physical barriers. Good thing then that the skater philosophy has adapted to not care the slightest for architectural rules and regulations, in fact if anything at all the skate hate has grown into a challenge to be won.

tW

Sugar Coated

In the age we live in it is sadly becoming decreasingly surprising to turn a corner of an area we are deeply comfortable in and discover a new development of a monstrous scale that we have never before been aware of, and like two ruthless blows from a shotgun this is exactly what has happened to me over roughly the last month.

As if abstracted from a scene in the famous War of the Worlds film, two new pieces of architecture located on the Northern end of Wellesley Rd. and Fell Rd, which arguably border on being in themselves a development, have landed in Croydon ready to force attention and generate yet more fresh and unnecessary scars on the land. The absolute principal consideration for myself when observing these new urban additions to Croydon's urbanscape is not the function of/or design (although both should be heavily considered in order for architecture to progress!), but the long-term impact the materials, processes and scale of construction will have on the town both physically and socially.

The first example of these new UFO structures is the new Croydon council building on Fell Rd, the basic form is staggered in three stages by addressing the flyover at its highest point and then continuing to sympathetically step down to the height of Croydon Town Hall. First impressions undeniably incline towards the modern and beautiful with the sky seemingly invited to street level by the reflections off the facades and generous entrance spaces. Yet what is most striking about the buildings design is the exhausting use of glass, far in excess of what would actually be resourceful and/or appropriate there is the first external skin connected to the structure to make it weather tight and then a second skin hung off of the first to act as what can only be a massive glass anorak. So although I also believe that the new council building may turn out to be the saving grace of a few park spaces and streets around this area that were socially dead before, we as a community must decide whether it was the correct decision to tear down the existing concrete building that stood here before just to replace it with another concrete building?

The behemoth scale ground floor pillars that touch the earth like a giants hands are the foundations of a new architecture currently being constructed on Wellesley Rd, the second and last example. The basis of this construction is a mixed use development contained within an intriguing form with an addition of car park spaces, all constructed once more out of concrete. With the need for more apartment style housing that is both interesting and intriguing it is again not the function or form of this particular project that I have issue with, it is the connection with society and the existing context. Take a walk along Wellesley Rd and passed this development and you will soon feel within yourself the unmissable presence of those ground floor columns rising up around two to three stories, is this scale of design and construction really necessary, a case of form over function? Nevertheless, what can be learnt from this architectures design is the courage to address the harshness that is the Wellesley Rd, whilst so many buildings in East Croydon have turned their back on this piece of problematic infrastructure in the past, this young building attempts the unthinkable.

When large-scale architectures land in an already complicated urban cocktail of a town such as Croydon it can be only too easy for not only the architects and planners but also local inhabitants to begin to see the development though a restricted scope and drift away from what is ultimately their context and environment. The immense glass facades of these contemporary boxes with their sugar-coated taste of the marketing and visualisations is hard to resist and of course these things are designed to win over the hearts and minds of the local community, but we must always remember that the initial sweet and joyful taste of these architectural cupcakes will inevitably become waste at the days end.

tW

Fell rd.

Wellesley rd.