#237 - Simon Bogalo: Convic and The Evolution of Skate Park Innovation (ft. Leon Paxton) - Terrible. Happy

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, hey, it's Shan here.
This week I catch up withConvict Skate Park's lead
designer, simon Bogolo.
Simon joins myself and pastguest and this week's guest
co-host, leon Paxton, in thestudio for a full video
production episode.
We get loads of visuals up, wecheck out pictures of all the

(00:43):
skate parks that Convict havebeen a part of and built and
designed, and Simon just breaksit all down.
He talks about everything thatgoes into getting these amazing
projects out of the ground, fromthe design process to community
consultation, community actioninitiative, working with
builders and concreters.
There is so much that goes intoit.

(01:05):
It was mind-blowing.
Simon also shares about hispersonal life and how he
transitioned into becoming askate park designer and finding
that balance between career andpassion.
So that's inspiring andenjoyable to listen to.
Now, the three of us met atglebe skate Skate Park on the
day of recording and it was justsuch a fun day.

(01:26):
We skated, but Leon also filmeda vlog of our day and if you're
not sure about what Leon does,he has an epic YouTube channel.
It's called Leon Paxton and heindependently and unbiasedly
reviews skate parks aroundSydney mainly around Sydney, but
other parts of the country.
Parks around Sydney mainlyaround Sydney, but other parts

(01:47):
of the country.
Sydney's his focus becausethat's where he's from, but he's
so thorough and detailed in hisexplanations and research.
No one does it better in myopinion.
So if you scroll down into thisepisode's show notes, you'll
find a link to the vlog that hefilmed of our day and also his
other videos, so go and checkhim out.
This episode is a videoproduction episode, so if you

(02:09):
want to watch it, you can watchit on YouTube via the Terrible
Happy Talks YouTube channel.
The audio versions are stillavailable, obviously, on Apple
and Spotify, so wherever youlike to get your podcasts, it
always helps if you cansubscribe and follow.
I'm trying to build that,obviously, like everyone else,
but, um, I like the videoproduction episodes because we

(02:30):
get the images up and we talkabout it.
We get some old skate clipsfrom the 90s, and I love that.
We get an artist of the weeknow, which steve tini has
curated, and this week'sfeatured artist is Brooklyn
Whelan, and, oh man, wow, hisart is spectacular.
It's these epic images ofexplosions and clouds that are

(02:53):
all hand-painted, so check itout.
Anyway, you want to get a skatepark built in your area.
Sit back, relax and take notesand enjoy getting to know Mr
Simon Boggler.
Simon Boggler, how are youbrother?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I'm good man.
I'm a tiny bit nervous, but I'mgood to go.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, it's normal.
You've only got three camerason you and lighting.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
It's not my normal environment, yeah so just act
natural.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Tell us about your day, man.
So what has today entailed foryou?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's been pretty sick actually.
I flew up from Melbourne thismorning and met you, lovely
gentlemen, at the Glebe SkatePark, First time meeting Leon
and yourself, shan, andbasically we had a little skate
and talked about Glebe, talkedabout some of the obstacles, the

(04:05):
story behind them, a little bitabout how we design skate parks
.
It's been sick, it's been anice day.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So share with everyone your actual job
description.
What do you do?
Tell us about you.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I'm a landscape architect.
I've got a degree in landscapearchitecture but I'm the lead
designer at Convict Skate Parksso I head the team kind of
creatively.
Um, we've got a bunch ofarchitects, designers um
landscape architects, engineers,all sorts on the team and I'm
kind of in charge of like tryingto push creativity and make

(04:41):
sure we're doing aspirationalprojects see, I never even
considered that you would havethose kind of people on your
team, like landscape designersand architects.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
I'm like, no, it's all skateboarders.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Right, it has to be all skateboarders yeah, I mean
you definitely need a skate tounderstand how to design these
things.
But just because you can skate,it doesn't mean that you're
like gonna automatically knowhow to design a skate park.
Um, even for me, like I skatedand I'm a landscape architect,
I've been doing it for years,but, to you know, when I started

(05:16):
at convict, like 11 years ago,it was a real rude awakening to
like, okay, you need this muchrun up for an obstacle like this
is the sort of dimensions andyou know the radius, the radius,
the height, the angles, all ofthose things that make a good
skate park.
It was like a lot of learning.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
I can imagine.
So we're joined by Leon Paxtontoday and it's so rad having you
here, Leon.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
And is it a good moment for you hanging out with
someone like Simon today.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
It's good to hear what, like we see a new skate
park, like it's either good orit's bad.
But we know we don't think ofwhy it's good or why it's bad.
So a lot of people complainabout that or that, but we don't
know the work that goes onbehind the scenes and how long
it takes.
How much work.
Oh man, it's such a big process.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I'm learning now yeah , yeah, I mean every project is
a battle.
Yeah, like it it takes, yeah, Imean the whole team's involved
and all of us are so passionateabout it.
But, like, come opening day,we're pretty, we're pretty
stoked to get to like thatmoment that we can hand it over
to the community.
And yeah, like there's a lotthat people don't know about,

(06:23):
even like under the ground.
You know, like most of the timewe're getting the trashiest
sites because you're getting theleftover land in Sydney, right,
melbourne, wherever you are,and a lot of the time they're
old rubbish dumps.
A lot of the cost is going intolike fixing the geotech in the
ground underneath before you caneven start designing or
building something.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Can we just circle back to what you said.
A lot of the time they're oldrubbish dumps, so they're
landfill sites.
So are they often identified asthe place to build a skate park
?
Because it's land that's lessdesirable, I guess.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
so it's like you know all the premium sites are taken
and you know a lot of the sitesin Sydney, like Sydney Park,
for example, is an old tip andthere was a huge amount of work
that had to go into compactingthat ground so it was suitable
for a skate park, because if youdon't get the ground conditions

(07:15):
right, the whole thing is goingto crack and become not
functional for skating.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
And that's a big process and can be a slow
process, from my understanding,waiting for everything to settle
and yeah, so you guys will befamiliar with ride skate park.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I know that you've done the meta metabank right,
yeah, um.
So that one, for example, hadum issues with the ground and we
had to do what's called um.
What's it called it?
It's like basically preloadingto get compaction and you
basically push all the moistureout in the soil before you start

(07:51):
building so that you know it'snot cracking later on.
And that was six months beforewe could start building.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Dude yeah, people don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
There's a lot to it.
It's a science man.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, so we've had a rad day.
So the three of us went skatingfor most of the day at glebe
trying, trying to skate yeah, Iknow, you were always.
I was trying, oh I'll try.
I was falling I haven't battleda heel for years, but anyway, I
don't want to talk about thatwe had fun we did and, uh, it
was just a nice, a nice day.
But you know, every now and thenI just watch you skate and go
like that guy designed that andnow he's skating it.

(08:31):
So you know, put that intoreality for us.
Like, how does that feel?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I mean, I kind of like what I was saying to you
today.
It's every time you're skatinga park that you've worked on
you're sort of, um oh, we'reright in the mouth there, we're
going man.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I'm OCD about the sound.
I'll bring it up slightly Isthat all good, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's good, you're good, you'regood.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, so every time I'm skating it like, say, the
curb, I'm like man, we shouldhave got the angle a little bit
mellower on this so it's easierto slappy or that little wall
ride.
If the bank up to it was aslightly higher bank and a bit
of a more of an angle, the wallride would be easier um, but
then you learned that today,yeah, yeah, so you didn't know
that prior well, like not allparks I get to skate.

(09:18):
Obviously I'm not from sydney,um, so like that.
Today that's the first timeI've skated glebe.
I've taken clients there anddone stuff like that, but most
of the time I'm like damn, Iwant to skate this You're in
like business corporate mode.
Yeah, kind of yeah, like mysuper business.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Because, like it leads into, one of my initial
questions is, like, howimportant is feedback from
skateboarders in the designprocess?
So, like, just to cut back to,you know the wall ride you were
doing today and you're like, oh,wow, that's actually quite a
harsh transition, like, oh, andyou even said, oh, that flat
bank should have been a littlebit more angled yeah, I could
see your brain ticking over likefor your next design.

(09:55):
So how integral is feedbackfrom skateboarders?

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I mean, it's every park we're doing.
We're talking to local skaters,you know, all around the
country, and for us it's everypark we're doing.
We're talking to local skaters,you know, all around the
country, and for us it's likethe most important step in the
process because at the end ofthe day, it's going to be your
local park it's not my localpark, right?
So glebe, for example, that hasall these obstacles that are
old, iconic sydney spots.

(10:20):
But there's also people thatare like man, we've been crying
out for like an obstacle likethis for ages and this is what
we want.
So you know, they're anintegral part of that process
and it's probably like for usit's the, it's one of the best
things about the job, but it'salso where the pressure comes.
Like you know, skating is sosubjective and what people like

(10:40):
to skate, whether it'stransition or street or you know
people are really good inadvance and they want, you know,
challenging obstacles.
Or some people just want like amani pad or a little quarter
pipe, slappy curbs or a flat bar.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
More slappy bar yeah, a long round flat bar.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
You're advocating for flat bars.
I want more slappy curbs.
Yeah, that's rad.
Hey, let's get the Glebe SkatePark photos up now we're talking
about it and look at that park.
There she is, isn't shebeautiful?
Looks so good.
It's my favorite skate park andthat's no secret.

(11:18):
I've talked about it a lot hereon the podcast and from my
perspective it's my favoriteskate park because I actually
like the aesthetic.
So can you tell us about that?
Yeah, why was that important inthis design?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
so probably like two really important parts of this
design.
One was the communityinvolvement.
Like I said, like thecannonball feature, the sydney
fire hydrant, the old glelebemini ramp, the brick banks from
Darling Harbour, so all of thosewere direct from the community
and what they were looking for.
But then a big part of thespace was the brick and

(11:56):
integrating that differentmaterial into the space.
So the bridge that runs acrossthat train line, that's heritage
listed bridge, and a big partof like getting approval for the
skate park was, you know, wecouldn't build too close to the
pillars, but also we had to sortof incorporate that brick
within the design so that itbasically ticked off the sort of

(12:19):
strategic planning guidelinesthat council had.
So you know, one, the reasonthat skate park's there, because
we had to work with theheritage elements.
But two, it just adds thiswhole different kind of
character to it.
It makes it feel like a spot.
You get that sickclickety-clack under wheel when
you're rolling, which just feelslike the best.

(12:41):
But you get some good photosout of it too.
It looks a little bit moreauthentic.
Yeah yeah this is a good lookingpark it is good looking park.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
you know, when we first started communicating, you
kind of hit me up and you'relike shan, like I think it's
been me and ty coaling a lot onhere, have been like we've got
all these new skate parksbecause of the olympics and like
, based on no evidence, we don'tknow what we're talking about.
We were just, like, you know,making out like we were experts
on this but really had no clue.
But you were like, yeah, maybethe Olympics have been some sort

(13:13):
of contributor, but, forexample, you feel that the
influx was happening and theplanning stages were happening
well before the Olympics.
So, in regards to Glebe, whatwas the backstory?
Like, how long was this in theworks, from conception to
completion?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
So this one took a long time.
I think I did the firstconsultation with some of my
colleagues back in like 2013 or14 and the actual construction
happened like 2020.
But yeah, I guess a bit on thatbackstory and how these parks
kind of come about.

(13:51):
Um, I, I reckon you'll probablyremember there was a big
drought in skate parks in sydneyback before, sort of 2013-14.
I remember, yeah, like therewasn't any new parks for a long
time and the nitty-gritty onthis it actually comes from, and
I'm sure, like a lot of peopleremember this.

(14:12):
But so Cameron Sparks and TrentEvans and oh man, nigel, who
runs Totem.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Totem Skateboards.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah.
So these guys kind of lobbiedand got in touch with council
and basically did a lot ofpetitions and lobbying and there
was a big kind of you know, thereal push from the community
that got this kind of in frontof local government and they got
a champion through councillorlinda scott and basically a

(14:50):
voice in council that startedlike pushing for these things
and it was a it was sort of theum, you know, the beginning of
this big change in sydney and Iremember it big time because it
was like before that we weredoing a lot of parks in wa and
there was nothing up here andthen all of a sudden we're
working on mona vale, sydneygreen, sydney park, tech park

(15:12):
and so many sydney parks andit's all because these guys like
actually I was talking tocameron sparks and he's like I'm
not blowing my own trumpet.
I was like, dude, blow yourtrumpet.
You guys like push so hard andyou know like a lot of these
parks come about because peopleare pushing and lobbying and
like doing stuff behind thescenes that you know.

(15:33):
We just don't know about, um,and we're like at convict we're
we're getting to come in at thefun park when the funding's
actually there.
But those guys are doing allthe work you know in the
background.
Um, and yeah, like it's, all ofthese parks don't really have
much to do with the olympics.
I think like these days I wasthinking, yeah, like everyone

(15:55):
thinks, it's because theolympics ever since, like 2021,
these parks are popping up allover the place yeah, but like if
you look at some of the parksaround the country like um, you
will know if it's got somethingto do with the olympics, because
it looks like an olympictraining facility well, it's got
a big ball.
So you might like um sydney parkwith the big bowl there.

(16:16):
Yeah, that was actually um abit of a catalyst, for that was
the vans park series and at thattime they were like, oh, we,
you know, we need a park seriesbowl in sydney.
There's nothing like this.
So, yeah, that that was sort ofwhat triggered that.
But say, um, do you know, likethe new pussy park skate park?
that's what I just thought oftraining facility for example,

(16:39):
that looks exactly like an slsor olympic training course like
bigger rails, big rails, a lotof back and forth.
Everything's mirrored as well soyou can skate, so you get the
front side back side, you cansort of complete your line, and
there is a bit more of thatgoing on these days, like we are
seeing very recently, councilswill be like, oh, we want to

(17:01):
provide an Olympic trainingfacility so that, you know,
internationals can come andtrain or we can have comps, and
obviously, with the brisbaneolympics coming up, it is
becoming a thing.
But the backstory for all yourparks has got nothing to do with
the olympics.
It's a totally different story,which, yeah, and that's why
they're.
They're more like you knowthere'll be more DIY style or

(17:25):
transition or streety, becausethey're sort of like it's the
locals telling us what to do notthe Olympics, true, yeah?

Speaker 1 (17:33):
So shout out to Cameron Sparks and Trent Evans.
Trent Evans from Passportcorrect.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, that's the one.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Wow, yeah so rad.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
And those guys, like you know, say like Sydenham
Green, tech Park, mona Vale,glebe, they were all at those
community consultations helpingus with like oh, we'd love a
feature like this, and they werepromoting the consultations
through the Sydney SkateAssociation.
But yeah, it's crazy, it feelslike yesterday.

(18:03):
But yeah, it's crazy, it feelslike yesterday.
I remember like Sydenham Greendoing a consultation for that
and there was like 50 peoplethere and it was so heated and
so much pressure, like you guyshave got to get this right, and
we're like oh shit.
Yeah, you did it right, that'sone of my favorites.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, I guess, while we're on the topic, you know,
give us some key points on howsomeone can advocate for a skate
park in their local area, likewhat would be the first thing
they could do write an email tocouncil and where's my skate
park?

Speaker 2 (18:31):
I think like, yeah, like as many emails to council
as you can start a petition, youknow, I think one of the key
points is, um, trying to find achampion at council that can do
the hard work for you.
So, uh, councillor linda scottwas who was sort of doing that
for the sydney skate association, but I don't know, like these

(18:54):
days it's a bit differentbecause of the, you know, once
there's a few good parks, it'salmost snowball snowball effect
where every community wants one.
Now it's almost like the youknow youth version of a
playground, right, like everylittle regional area needs a
skate park.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
When you're at those meetings with council, are you
supporting the construction of akid's playground right next
door as well?
Is that getting skate parksover the line?
It's like a little carrotsaying like oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
I mean it's a funny one because you will notice like
a lot of these big parks say,like Ride Meadowbank, it's a
mega kids' playground, glebe,parkour and stuff too.
Even, yeah, sydney Park.
It's got this sort of learn toride track.
So a lot of the funding that iscoming for the skate park is
because it's becoming this bigfamily precinct Gotcha and as

(19:50):
much as we don't want, you know,little kids running through the
park and kind of ruining ourexperience, it is also where a
lot of the funding is comingfrom, because it's a
family-friendly facility that isopen to the public.
You know it's taxpayers'dollars that are paying for
these parks.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Ooh, yeah, Okay, Okay .
So I'll see those kids onscooters as you know they made
it happen.
I've actually just found areason to appreciate them
slightly, like, okay, if itwasn't for that kid, this
wouldn't be here, I'll just goaround them.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Deal with it.
Yeah, I mean, we all know likeI don't know, I don't want to
sound like a hater it all comesdown to like what time of the
day you go to the park.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, if you go middle of theday, you're probably, like, more
likely to encounter littlescooter kids and then after work
at night you'll probably get itto yourself.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
This week's featured artist, Brooklyn Whelan.
Those pictures are epic.
Like as you were talking there,it's like awesome clouds and
fire Sick I didn't even noticethat.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, that's sick.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
So, going back to some of the key features at
Glebe, they have a historichomage to Sydney street spots.
So the main ones at Glebe arethe legendary Darling Harbour
Brickbanks which we skated today.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, we tried to Tried to yeah like they're hard.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
It's good Like a street spot.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
It should be a challenge.
It challenges you, yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
And then also the famous Cannonball, or Macquarie
Place manual pad slash ledge.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, so the manual pad.
So who?
Was pushing for those, justlike Trent Evans and this was
like nine years ago, but therewas another dude that came to
the consultation and he boughtlike 3Ds and I wish I could
remember his name Aaron.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Jenkins.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
I can't remember.
Honestly, you're going to behere a while, but like he fully
bought us dimensions and 3Ds andhe's like, oh, we've got it.
Like the cannonball was one ofthe most important features to
get in there, yeah, it's sick.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Can we get a clip up of the old, legendary um and
before we play this clip, uh, sopast guest and past co-host and
friend, darren caney.
He used to destroy those, thosebrick banks, and there was a
legendary australian skate videomade by gordon orkaniki called
plebs featured the syd Sydneyscene predominantly and it was
epic and Darren skated thoseback in 1993.

(22:14):
And have a look at what he wasdoing on them.
What we're talking here like 30years ago.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
It's just the switch tray that you.
He does this.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Look at these like frontside kick loop over the hip
and they were rough man andslippery.
Look at this Does a kick loopon flat.
Does a kickflip on flat?
Backside kickflip over the hip.
Nice bit of curl park footage.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
I can hear that I'm watching it.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
I can hear the grip.
Why does that feel so goodunder foot?
Hey, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
That's a good question.
I reckon it comes back to thatfeeling.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Fakie kickflip over the hip Okay, and look, fakey
kick flip over the hip.
Okay, and look at this switchthrough, legendary how does that
make you feel when you watchthat do you feel like you nailed
it?

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I mean honestly, I feel like at convict we're our
own worst critics, like we'realways looking at things very um
, I don't know.
You never really feel likeyou've nailed it.
You always want to do better atthe next part.
But I feel like it's been awhile since we finished glebe
and I'm definitely proud goingthere and also like it's a huge

(23:20):
team effort, like it's not justone person in the office or out
on site, like you knoweveryone's kind of looking
through the drawings.
We've got a massive amount ofcritical review and there would
have been probably 12 differentdesigns for Glebe that went back
to the client, the communityand always changing.

(23:41):
So there's so many chances thatwe could have stuffed it up.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Okay, how much did it cost?
How much did Glebe cost?
Come on.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
For the actual skate park?
It was about 1.2 million.
Is that all but this ispre-lockdown and pre-covid in
one of leon's vlogs yeah, he'sgot it wrong said it was 14
grand, it's 40 million.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
It was like five or six million.
I probably said, yeah, so lookat what the council says.
But that was the entire project, right?

Speaker 2 (24:09):
yeah, so I think it can be misleading, because quite
often the skate park will bepart of a much larger precinct.
Right there'll be a biglandscape master plan that'll
have like um playgrounds,footpaths, car parking and all
that's there yeah, um, so theskate park was one small
component of that.
But yeah, I reckon it wouldcost a bit more these days

(24:32):
because, since COVID, the priceof steel, the price of pretty
much everything has gone up alot Inflation.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, it's expensive times, right.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
I mean, has there been a reluctance because of
that by councillors to spendmoney?

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Surprisingly.
I think everyone is prettyaware that this is what's going
on in the world, because it'snot just skate parks.
It's like the wholeconstruction industry has gone
up a lot, so the budgets thatwe're working on, compared to
other massive community projects, are probably peanuts for them.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Interesting man, interesting.
All right, jock, let's getanother skate park up.
I think we had maybe Tech Park.
Now I'm pretty sure we've gotTech Park next.
Now look at that man likeaesthetically another one
Another.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Good looking what do you think Leon?
And good sounding when you'reon the tiles, just that sound of
your wheels rolling across it.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, when you're on the tiles, just that sound of
your wheels rolling across it.
Yeah, Now, Leon, you reviewedthat right, yes.
In one of your vlogs, like whatwere some of the things you
were discussing about it, likewhat were the standouts for you
from that point?

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Pretty much the way it's designed Like.
We can see the features.
They used the granite or themarble.
The manual pads the ledge atthe flat.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Even my favorite thing, there is that ledge, but
the other side outside of the,yeah, so you have to grind the
whole thing to clear the gardenthere, like stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
I really like, yeah, like it's just not this dog here
.
It's a normal.
It's just a normal ledge.
But if you take away the like,the center of it you have to
clear, so it's like a gap.
That kind of stuff is is coolto see it like.
At sydney too there's one yeah,inside out.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
So, yeah, yeah, that's definitely like something
we're always like looking forthose sneaky little moments of
something that you might notthink of, and the more you skate
it, you're like, oh, that couldbe cool.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, so what you like?
Just the fact that you'regrinding over a grass gap, you
have to clear it.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
like you can't just see the end of the ledge, you
can see it off to the far left.
Yeah, on the left.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, I tried to nose slide that.
I almost got it.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
But I did, I like it, I was sliding it.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I got into a couple of crookeds but I had one day,
but I just find that it was yeah, as you're sliding, you're like
oh wow, I'm.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
It makes you like you have to lock in and hold that
trick instead of just get in andget out.
So I like that kind of stuff.
You got those tricks locked.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
I saw you holding some nose grinds today.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
I was like damn you had backside nose, grind that
whole flat ledge that long ledgeat Glebe today.
I just rode the wrong boardtoday.
Why did you ride a?

Speaker 3 (27:06):
10-inch board.
Today.
I skated yesterday so I wantedto try something different today
.
I didn't know I was gonna do somuch skating today.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
You just get a lot, so I can feel it so what I find
interesting about tech parkSimon is that it doesn't have a
mega kids playground attached toit nah.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
So this one was a little bit different, um,
because it was part of thiscommercial business district.
It was sort of, um, I guessthere was like offset money to
put towards public realm, sothere's courts as well and the
skate park and obviously rightnext to it is, um, a little
exercise area.
But yeah, this one for us, likeif these a few of these

(27:45):
projects we're talking about arekind of milestone projects that
we were trying somethingdifferent.
And this one, I remember, likepeople were like you know why
the hell are you putting treesin a skate park?
What are you doing with allthese different materials?
And you know, for us, oh man,like you know, it's a complaint
against the trees.
I think people are just likelike it's wasting space yeah, or

(28:08):
they're getting in the way ofour run, but we were pretty
careful with where we put them.
We had skatable tree pits andyou know now that you go there,
like you were saying today, thatit feels shady and nice in
summertime.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, that's the best summer skate park is in between
the trees and the big buildingthere.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
It does drop a lot of leaves and stuff, but so what?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
You just bring a blower, yeah, and plus they're
pretty good at maintaining thatpark.
But, um, yeah, yeah, that one,you know the brick banks, the,
the granite paving, the graniteledges, um, and just the way the
whole thing set out to be alittle bit more like a kind of
weird little plaza that feelslike a street spot rather than
just a traditional skate park.
Um, it was super fun to work on, super challenging why, yeah,

(28:52):
you don't want to talk about itI'll tell you like basically.
So, as part of the um projectbrief, we had to introduce
bricks within the design and theconstruction obviously and this
was a big learning curve for usand all of the bricks in this
sort of precinct had alreadybeen specified.
So we're like oh yeah, sweet,we'll use those bricks.

(29:14):
And I don't know if youremember this.
But basically we opened andthen, like a few days later, we
had to close because the bricksthat we had installed were just
not fit for use or purpose andthey were like rubbing away when
people were skating them, likesoft and it was just off.
No, like, yeah, they weredisintegrating, crumbling, so

(29:34):
like we basically were like ohmy God, it's not working, and we
pulled all of them out andreinstalled them with like
proper bricks.
That were a lot, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
They were more dense and you know just I don't know,
so what that must have been ahard day at the office it was a
big learning curve did you getlike an email going.
What have you done?

Speaker 2 (29:57):
rip it up I mean, it's like we were the ones that
noticed that, like we're justlike what is going on?
Um, but yeah, we we like toconvict's we fully ripped them
out and replaced them all out ofour own pocket because we
wanted it to be right and lastfor a long time.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
So I mean but isn't this normal for any construction
job?
There's always going to besomething every now and then
Like nothing's perfect right.
There's never a perfect buildright.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, yeah, and we're always trying to learn and
evolve and change what we'redoing.
So when you're doing that,you're taking steps and you know
you might not always get itright, but we try our best to
and like obviously, in thissituation, we went back and
fixed it.
But you know, these things arealways evolving.
It's always changing whatpeople want and you see what

(30:47):
kids are doing these days theprogression is nuts, so we need
to try and keep.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Keep up with that, I guess do you think there's more
of a call for like obscureobstacles, like uh?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
yes and no.
Like like what you're saying,like more unique, like yeah,
unique kind of like like.
I think we're in a situation insydney where you know you've got
a huge network of skate parks,now You've got the flat bars,
the ledges, the perfect ledge,the perfect flat bar that you
know, that you were talkingabout before.
Like now we're in the situationwhere there's so many different

(31:21):
parks, we can be a bit moreexperimental, say like the Lane
Cove Park that I was telling youabout.
You know, it's all transition.
It's got that weird wall rightup the rock wall.
It's an opportunity for us tobe like.
We can be way more crazy thanlike maybe six or seven years
ago, when there wasn't anythinghere.
If we started doing really weirdstuff all the time, people

(31:42):
would be like, we just want the,we want the fundamentals.
Where's the like perfect ledge,where's a mini pad?
Um, you still get that.
Anyway, people still say thatoh man, like.
Like I said to you today, likeskate parks, skateboarding is
the most subjective thing.
Like.
I'm pleased, everyone will doour best and we try and take the
majority of what the communityis telling us that they want and

(32:03):
run with that, but there'salways going to be someone
that's like oh man, you, youmissed this or it's hard it's
the old guys who want slappycurbs, I swear.
I'm one of those old guys now.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
No, you're not.
You're ripping today.
I see now Leon got a couple ofclips of you as well, yeah.
What's the perfect flat barheight?

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Oh, that's confidential, bro.
I can't tell you that.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
But in terms of the attention to detail that you
guys go into, no, we have, wehave a formula haven't you?

Speaker 2 (32:37):
we have a set height now, like you know, at glebe.
It's probably a bit too highand that one's a square rail,
which someone asked for I wishwe kind of didn't do it now.
But um yeah, we have, likethere's some things in our
little kind of notebook that youknow, we know like this is a
good height for the perfectheight for a ledge or rail.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
And this has just evolved through trial and error.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Oh yeah, and like I feel like I have the craziest
knowledge of, like, what theperfect distance is to a ledge,
like you know if you're doing apush, start instead of dropping
in.
Like you need this many meters.
Yeah, do you think?

Speaker 1 (33:14):
you've built more.
Now that you've got a prettystacked resume, has community
trust really built and peopleare just like the process is
getting easier because they'rejust trusting you, kind of know
what's best?
Like you're getting input, butwhen it comes to those details
you're like just trust us, theflat bar has got to be this
height.
And just trust us, yeah youknow like we we're going to make

(33:37):
the ledge this height orwhatever yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
So like if most, most situations, what we're doing
with community consultation iswe want people to push the
direction of what they'relooking for in terms of style,
whether it's transition street,a mix of both.
You know materiality, you knowwe really want to vert ramp, a
big bolt, whatever.

(33:59):
But in terms of, like theactual technical side of what
the dimensions are, theproportions, the radius, we kind
of know from years ofexperience like we have guys in
our office that that is theirsole job, just the technical
side of things and making surethat it's the perfect height.
Probably like one of thehardest things about designing a

(34:19):
skate park and building it isgetting the grading right.
So you would probably not thinklike the grading of so the
surfaces, like how they gradethe level change so that you're
not getting drainage waterdrainage, so you're not getting
pulling of water, but also thatit skates fast so do you think
of that stuff, leon?

Speaker 3 (34:36):
like it doesn't even cross my mind but I skated
mccorry field skate parkyesterday and I noticed where
the flat bar is.
It goes slightly downhill, soit makes sense to where the
drain's position too.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
So the water's going to lead that way yeah, so that
would be like the first thingthat we're thinking about.
So we'll be looking at like,where's the nearest drainage pit
?
What can we drain into,especially if you're doing like
a mega deep bowl.
You know, yeah, you can't justhave it, have it filling up with
water all the time actual poolyeah, exactly so there's so much

(35:09):
more that goes into it there'sall this kind of technical stuff
that is probably lessinteresting.
But yeah that's how it works,right, yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:17):
so where'd you grow up?

Speaker 2 (35:19):
so I am from west auckland, from a place called
oratea um in new, and I moved toMelbourne in, I think, 2011.
So it's been a while now 14years.
It's pretty much a littleMelbourne local.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
What brought you over ?

Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's a pretty long story, but I was living in
Canada and I broke my tibia andfibula in about 10 places and I
have like titanium from my kneeto ankle now and it kind of I
was going to go to Europe and goand do sort of more traditional

(36:00):
landscape architecture overthere, but, um, that forced me
to go home and I was like, youknow, no weight, no weight
bearing for six months a yearwithout like walking properly.
And by that point it was theglobal financial crisis and
there was no jobs in Europe.
So I was like I had a buddy, um, carl, who was living in

(36:21):
Melbourne and he's like comeover and I'd done like a uni
trip here.
I was like man like Melbourne'ssick and there's just, you know
, the economyralia didn't seemto be as affected.
So I was like sick and I got ajob, um, for a landscape firm
and I was honestly getting tothe point where I was like

(36:42):
working on these projects thatwere sort of you know, big
residential developments, urbansprawl, things, that I just was
like I didn't believe in it andI was like man I don't know if
this is for me anymore and I sawlike this job advertised for,
you know skate park design.
I was like no way, like thatwould be unreal, and I actually

(37:06):
like I didn't get the job.
I interviewed so many times andI missed out, and one of my
homies ended up getting the joband he was like you should have.
You should have got Simon.
He's like, loves skating and so, yeah, that was like 11 years
ago, so that's kind of prettymuch sorry.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Was that with Convy?
Yeah, they knocked you backfirst.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, it was a tough interview process but the broken
leg and all of that kind of ledme down this path.
Look at that to happen.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, that's a funny thing.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
At the time I was like, oh, this is the worst
thing ever.
But here we are, this is likethe dream job.
So you love your job, man, it's.
Yeah, I'm very lucky.
I like I work with the raddestdudes, like our team is just.
You know, all my good mates,you know we'll go for a beer on
fridays, we skate together.
Um, they all like so passionateabout what we do.

(38:06):
Like last year I got to go tohong kong working on a park
there with one of my bestbuddies and we're just skating
around the streets in Hong Kongpinching ourselves, like what is
going on?
I can't even believe that thisis my job.
I suppose it's like what youguys do as well.
If you do something you'repassionate about, it's the best
I feel very lucky.

(38:26):
After now doing it for a longtime and you've said you're
passionate about that's the best, I feel very lucky.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Like after now doing it for a long time and you've
said you've kind of evolved intothe lead designer.
You know, is it more stressfulin that position or is it more
responsibility.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
I mean, yeah, there's , for I mean, everyone that I
work with really cares aboutwhat we're doing and what we're
putting out the door, and I'mnot like controlling every
single project.
Everyone's responsible for eachof their projects that I'm
working with.
We've got a team of like eightdesigners and I guess I'm there

(39:05):
to be like firing up the boysand, like you know, come on, man
, I reckon you could do better.
Or, like you know, quite oftenwe'll look at parks in the
States or you know, plazas thatare in Europe or something, and
be like trying to inspire eachother.
And yeah, I think there'sdefinitely pressure and like at

(39:25):
the moment I'm working on a fewparks back in New Zealand and
you know, for me that's like, oh, you should.
You know, like all the homiesare like looking at what I'm
doing and you know you've got toget it right.
But I'm pretty I've done it fora long time and I'm pretty like
confident in my ability now oflike knowing whether we've got

(39:45):
it right or wrong.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Or, you know, like you know You're more of an
overseer, really aren't you?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, like there's a bunch of us that are like
there's a few old heads atConvict that have been doing it
for a while.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Are you mentoring any younger ones coming through?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
For sure, for sure.
So there's a few young guys and, yeah, like I said, like just
because you skate, it doesn'tmean that like you're going to
know exactly how to design apark.
So trying to help those guys.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
So the company is actually like cognizant of the
fact that it is important tonurture the next generation of
designers.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Are they thinking that far ahead?

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And like you know, man, it'sreally hard to find people that
skate, that understand design.
So if you're listening and youwant a job ready, I'm looking at
one like I'm so I don't knowhow to build.
Oh man, like design side, yeah,like, I mean, yeah, the, the

(40:39):
that's the that's a great partabout it is that we are building
the parks and, like you know, II learned so much starting to
work for a company that'sactually building the park as
well as designing it, becausethe boys on site will be like,
oh mate, you got this wrong.
Or you know, I, I learned somuch starting to work for a
company that's actually buildingthe park as well as designing
it, because the boys on sitewill be like, oh mate, you got
this wrong.
Or you know, we're constantlyworking back and forth with each
other and the, the quality.

(41:01):
Like you know, they want to getit perfect and it's not easy to
build a skate park like you aretraveling all day.
The concrete to get it smooth,to get it grading right, those
guys kill themselves.
It's hard work.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
How has it evolved for you, leon?
Like with you know I was sayingto Simon today like, yeah, I've
skated some of the parks aroundSydney, but it's almost safe to
say like you've skated likeevery single park in Sydney.
I swear to God Maybe, but haveyou started like through that

(41:34):
process of like skating everypark and talking about it?
You know you're starting tonotice these patterns in like
design features, spacing,dimensions, and you just start
to go that doesn't work, thatworks.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Well, when you're saying you have to have the
right amount of run up andlanding and stuff, I've never
considered that before.
I was trying to think of skateparks that I remember that were
too short of a run up.
So I think that's kind ofnailed.
That thing's good because I'venever had a problem with that.
But, just like you said, it'sso subjective.
You can't please everyone likeI.
I haven't skated the lane coveyet because it's all transition

(42:03):
based and I suck at transitionbut I thought that was a great
idea.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I've seen that.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I thought that having that was a good idea, because
there's already all of thosestreet-based parks Like what
about the transition guys?
Lane Cove looks so fun forsomeone that can skate
transition.
So finding something like yousaid, if you come out with Lane
Cove and there wasn't likeSydenham and Meadowbank and all
that, people would be like whatis this?

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Where's all the street parts like, but you've
got a good basis of differentparks now I mean, that's the the
funnest thing about sydney nowis like, say, like olds park for
example I love that place.
Yeah.
So um gus, who's a designer,who's an architect in our team,
was working on that and he wasthis is sort of, I guess, how I

(42:48):
work with the team he was sortof doing a few concept designs
of things that people werelooking for in the community and
we were like, oh, sydney's goteverything, now how can we do
something different?
And we were like, what about ifwe just introduce heaps of
strange steel elements and it'sall custom, kind of DIY little
obstacles and just play with itand have some fun?

(43:11):
It's sick.
And the other thing like theold Odds Park skate park had
this old steel quarter pipe, howabout we pay homage to that by
doing heaps of weird steel newstuff?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, I actually haven't skated it yet.
I mean, I've seen heaps offootage, so, like there's these
two quarter pipes that are, it'sgot like the there's a gap and
I've seen heaps of footage.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
So like there's these two quarter pipes that are,
it's got.
Like the, there's a gap, notthe one with the.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
It's like a hip almost.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
It's a hip, it's a weird hip.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
They're offset quarter pipes, literally
staggered quarter pipes yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Was that the you know tribute to those?

Speaker 2 (43:40):
I mean a little bit Like you have to talk to Gus a
bit more, but he was just tryingto.
This dog loves me.
Yeah, he can smell my littlepup Hugging me so good.
Yeah, like every feature inthere would have had a lot of
thought and everyone's sort oflike reviewing it to try and get
it right.
But yeah, what was the question?

Speaker 1 (44:03):
again, sorry, oh, I was just trying to.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, paying homage to the old one, like yeah, I
guess that's sort of big idea,but then trying to do some weird
stuff, that's a bit of achallenge, like each obstacle's
got some unique thing that um,it brings a different presence
and hopefully it's challenging.
I love it.
It's one of my like.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
It quickly became one of my favorites, because I've
never seen anything like that,and I was even one of the times
I went.
Uh, kieran woolley was thereand he was like yeah, this place
is sick it looks, it feels likeit's a diy skate park, like the
way everything's built likenothing is normal besides the
bowl and maybe the two littledown rails.
That's all I can think of.
That's like what you would seeat a standard skate, so we got

(44:43):
like the little mini ramp, butlike, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
So we designed that one and that was built by
Revolution Skate Parks RampRevolutions, I think they're
called Right and they did a goodjob.
They killed it.
So I feel like, yeah, I haven'tactually been to it since it's
been built.
I haven't been to all of theparks we've worked on, but, like
most of them, I get a chance togo to.

(45:06):
I was actually here two weeksago.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
I was going to go to it but it was super wet.
That's one of the ones when Ijust said people still complain
that there's no basic obstacles.
I made a video there and peoplewere like what?
You can't even skate this park.
Where's the flat bar?
Where's the ledge?
Nothing's normal there.
You can go to another skatepark.
Miranda's close.
Miranda has everything as well.
Like you, don't have to haveeverything at each single skate
park.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, I mean, that's subjective.
It's going to be tricky.
Yeah, I don't know, yourfavorite skate park might be
completely different to likewhat mine is, because I can't
ollie anymore.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
You can't ollie.
I've seen you ollieing.
What are you talking about?
I?

Speaker 3 (45:45):
don't know.
I've seen you, ollie, today.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Tiny little ones uh, what do we got next?
Jock, give me a clip.
We're going to the.
The next image we have, I thinkit was the brackenridge.
Is that brackenridge?
Yeah, so let's talk about that.
So because, like I sort ofasked you, like, what are some
skate parks in particular thatyou would like to talk about?
And you mentioned brackenridge,how come?

Speaker 2 (46:08):
so, yeah, I guess this one was a bit of a
milestone project for us.
Um, it looks amazing that was2016, 17, yeah, and you know, I
think this was one of our firstkind of more plazary street
street style parks, first parkthat we're done at granite ledge
, and this was a greatcombination of like me and rowdy

(46:31):
, who's one of the more techtechnical designers in the team
really butting heads of likewhat we thought should be in the
park, but like through thatprocess, something really
special comes out and like thebuild quality.
The boys killed it.
It's, it's epic.
Um, but yeah, I think for uslike doing more of a really flat

(46:52):
skate park that you can kind oflike do flat ground tricks in
between fetches, you can link aline together.
You'll see like quite a lot ofspace and like that's that run
up and roll away that we weretalking about.
Yeah, I wish the little dog wason the camera.
But I personally look at it.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
I love the landscaping, like I love the
trees in the middle.
It looks sick.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
So that was like something we clashed on because
I was like mate, like if it'sjust concrete, it's going to
feel so like you know, bigconcrete wasteland, let's get
some green in there.
So that was something we sortof had to figure out and you'll
see if you look closely theresomething we sort of had to

(47:34):
figure out, and you'll see ifyou look closely.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
There's like a kicker to kicker through the trees and
that's like built of granite aswell, so I can't believe
granite is a feature in skateparks?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
I wouldn't in my lifetime I never thought I'd see
that, yeah, we actually importthem straight from china.
But yeah, like so there's heapsof obstacles on this.
That, um, at the time it was,like, you know, groundbreaking
and you know when it like getsbuilt and you're just like so
stoked with the outcome.
And I remember, like, workingon the Sydenham Green

(47:58):
consultation, mona Valeconsultation, they were all
looking at that like, oh, wewant like what that park's got
so sick.
Yeah, it looks sick, that looksamazing.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
I need to get there yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Worth the trip.
It's probably a little bitrougher now.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
I just had a memory like back in the day when I used
to skate a lot in the 90s.
The original Paddington SkatePark in Brisbane was just a
pretty standard skate park had afun box, quarter pipes, had a
steel half pipe but they builtit around a big old fig tree
that shaded the whole park and,like everyone, used to love it

(48:33):
because of that tree.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
And the feeling it created while you were there,
and I mean I'm looking at thispark like I don't know, are they
trees that are going to get bigand shade the park?
Because that's the big thingI'm finding with skate parks is,
in summer, especially out westin Sydney.
Oh man man, it's like a desertout there and it's white and
bright, or if it's black.
You just like cannot see.
It's like literally like anurban heat island.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, you guys are thinking of this stuff, like the
parks in WA, like some of thoseparks are the most arid
landscapes, like super hot Arid,like we did, uh, the freemantle
skate park, and that was a longtime ago now, but there was
this big avenue of trees thatwent down the park and now
they're all like big enough thatthey're actually shading the

(49:19):
park and it feels like it'sintegrated into the landscape,
like I guess that's where thesort of landscape architecture
and the that kind of design sideof things and that thinking
comes into what we're doing.
That you know it's more thanjust a skate park.
It's a community space.
It's somewhere like kids go andhang out after school, catch up
with the homies, like you knowthey need to be somewhere that

(49:43):
they actually want to hang outand meet up, like a lot of the
you know when, when, when I wasskating when I was young, like
I'd go and skate evandale skatepark in west auckland and like
big part of it was just catchingup with buddies and like
sitting around having a beeryeah, how old were you when you
first started skating?
man, like I skated.
I remember like rolling down mydriveway with my dad when I was

(50:06):
like I don't know four or five,but probably not proper skating
, until like Musker came on thescene, like probably 11 or 12 or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Have you heard of Chad Musker Leon?
Of course.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
But actually I was introduced to him by Tony Hawk's
Underground maybe.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Like the computer game.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
He pulls up yeah, in the game he pulls up to your
local park and gives you hisboard or something.
So I was like, yeah, this issick.
And then the storyline has himand Bear Marjorie in it.
That's how I was introduced tothese legends.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Fair enough though Like it's generational.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Like.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I don't want to make you feel bad for not knowing
that, but it's kind of like arealization for me that the
generations coming through don'tknow who some people are like
these kids that don't know whodanny way are.
Like that trips me out, likeyou know who he is they probably
were in dc's too, I don't knowwho danny way is.
Or colin mckay, yeah, rickhoward.
Or mike carroll.
Oh my god, how do you not know?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
that like even like weirdly for me and like where I
grew up in west auckland likeyou know, we weren't getting all
the videos at that time, orlike I wasn't and I remember
going to video easy and gettinglike the bones brigade video of
like lance mountain, just likejumping off his roof and pushing
down the street and like that'sa lot of my mates that skated

(51:24):
at the time were a bit older anddoing like bonelesses and no
complies and stuff like that andI feel like like I don't know
it was that.
And then there was this localKiwi video tweakage with oh man,
what's his name?
Shayataria, and like all thekind of old Kiwi legends.

(51:46):
Mappy was in that.
I think, yeah, right, but yeah,yeah, it was a while before
like I started seeing, like youknow, fulfill the dream and all
the like kind of more common 90svideos, just because, man, it
was a different time, like whenI you're what?
47?
I just turned 40 like yeah, itwas definitely less floating

(52:09):
about and it was a lot harder tocome by footage.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, it's like, and, like you said, you maybe
started rolling around on aboard when you were four or five
, but did you ever think in yourwildest dreams that you'd still
be skating at 40?
Nah.
No, I didn't, and in fact, Ilove it more now than I ever
have.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
I was just about to say like nowadays, when I get
out for a roll, I just have this, you know this deep
appreciation for, like thefeeling of your wheels just
rolling along on concrete andlike you know, just a few little
tricks makes me super happy.
Um, definitely not skating asmuch as I used to.
A lot of the friends have, like, had families and stuff so it's

(52:45):
hard to link up.
But um, I definitely like insummer I'm skating once a week
at least and then, like winter,it's a little bit harder.
Melbourne's a bit wet, but um doyou miss nz uh I miss like my
family and friends and stufflike that, and when I'm it's
weird.
Like when I'm there, I miss it.
You know, like when you're home, you're like like, oh, this is

(53:06):
so good, like I'm going to missthis when I'm back in Melbourne.
But yeah, like I definitelymiss it and it's so nice like
going back and working inWellington and like linking up
with friends and like for a longtime I've been doing skate
parks in Australia for years anddifferent parts of the world,

(53:29):
but it's so nice to like finallybe working and like taking what
I've learned and bringing thatback to New Zealand because,
like you know, I just feel likethere could be some better parks
there.
Um, and I'm super keen to bringwhat we've been doing here to,
like you know, hometowns.
I did, um, well, we worked on apark in auckland called velonia

(53:50):
skate park and that was like2015 and that was like one of my
proudest moments ever, likedesigning a park in auckland
that I knew all my buddies weregoing to skate it and, um, it
was like it like turned outreally good, like I was super
proud.
I mean, there's always littlethings you're like, oh damn, we
should have done that, but forme that was one of the proudest

(54:12):
moments being able to like havemy mum and dad there at the
opening.
My nana and granddad drove and,you know, had a look and, yeah,
I contribute a little bit backhome, it's cool man.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
I wonder if they'll ever name a skate park after you
.
Okay, here's a question.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
I hope not, that would be weird.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
If you were ever going to get a skate park named
after you, hypothetically, whichone would it be?

Speaker 2 (54:39):
I honestly don't think I would never want a park
named after me because it's likeOkay, good answer.
I feel like it's like thatcommunity's park.
It's not about us.
It's sort of like whoever'slike that community's park.
It's not about us.
It's sort of like whoever'stesting you out, you're coming
out it's, um, yeah, that's toomuch pressure and, like I said,
like it's weird.

(54:59):
Even you know I'm here, but I'mtalking on behalf of like a
whole team of like, yeah,builders, concreters um so many
people that are like invested inwhat we're doing, so I'm just
one little part of the puzzle.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah man, so rad dude .
Were you a good student atschool.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
I had my ups and downs Sort of nerd vibes.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Nah, no nerd vibes.
I kind of like Leon was a nerd.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
I didn't like high school that much.
How would you know?
I liked uni.
I want to talk about that.
Once I actually got touniversity and I was like
studying creativity and designand stuff I was passionate about
yeah, like I didn't like I feltlike high school.
I was being forced to learnstuff that I really did not give
a shit about that's the mostcommon theme that I hear, but

(55:46):
every time yeah, once I got touni I had these amazing lectures
that were, like you know, justthink big yeah and what was the
action.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Like you know, actually, I want to get this out
there for kids that may beinspired by you and want to
follow a similar trajectory,like what was the degree called?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
exactly so I studied landscape architecture landscape
architecture but a lot of theguys in the office, like some
are architects um some didbuilding design and drafting um
engineers like okay, like civilengineers uh, yeah civil
engineers?

Speaker 1 (56:17):
do you guys or do you contract them?

Speaker 2 (56:20):
and stuff we've got um some employed.
Sometimes we'll like umcontract as well dude, but like
so much goes into it honestly,honestly if there's like someone
who is passionate aboutskateboarding and any type of
design.
I feel like it can translate andcome in.
I don't feel like there's oneset career that you have to get

(56:41):
into to get to this level.
I feel like it's like work hard.
You've got to be willing to putin a lot of personal time
because it's um.
You know, like we're workingfor the community but at the end
of the day, we're also workingfor clients and, like quite
often we're over budget.
It needs to be redesigned, it'scut back, like you know, all

(57:01):
sorts of things that areconstantly changing um you know,
it just sounds heavy becauseyou're juggling big budgets here
, right?
Yeah, I mean not always.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Well, it's big money.
I mean, there's still big moneyinvolved.
You know, whether it's tight ornot, it's still big money,
right?

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, and like, yeah it's, it's
definitely.
It's like I said, it's alwaysevolving and there's always some
some new, like surprise thingthat you're like oh shit, we
didn't think about that.
Like you know, like, um,whether it's ground conditions
or like flooding, like we'reworking on a project in lismore

(57:41):
at the moment and, as you know,like lismore floods crazy
amounts, so like that's a bigaspect of how we consider that
design and making sure that, um,it can handle being completely
submerged by like five meters ofwater.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
You know, wow, what's the most expensive skate park
in sydney come?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
on.
I mean, we didn't build it, wedesigned it, but it would be
sydney park it is sydney um,that was concrete skate parks,
but it was expensive because of-.
The landfill, the landfill.
They had to do a lot of liketreatment to get the geotech
right.
There was, do you know, like-.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
That can't be healthy for people, man or just pack it
in.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Well, they do like special membranes that capture
it all in there.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
There's like or just push it down into the core of
the earth.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
that capture it all in there.
Oh, okay, just push it downinto the core of the earth.
Then there's also like with apark like that, because the way
that they were treating it theywere pretty much like pounding
the land to get it compacted,and they have to do like
dilapidation reports on all theapartments nearby and like
before and after photos to checkthat they haven't cracked the
bloody building, damn.
So there's a lot of hecticstuff going on with.

(58:51):
You know that was a big,expensive park and full credit
to them for getting it finished.
I know like they probably haveto talk to them, but I know like
they were like almost put outof business by that park for how
much money it cost.
Stressful, stressful.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
You need to appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
When a new skate park opens, the amount of work that
goes through it yeah, I mean,how do you feel when you know
like let's, let's use the brickbanks at tech park as an example
?
There was a bit of a drama.
You had to rip him out, put himback in.
How does it then feel?
You go to a skate park and thenyou see like it's been tagged
and graffitied all over.
Uh, can you share?

Speaker 2 (59:26):
about that heartbreaking, so it is
heartbreaking yeah, like for us,you know there's so many people
involved like those guysconcreting are spending hours
and hours, waking up at like 5am, blood, sweat and tears,
putting everything into thatpark, you know.
And the other thing that peopledon't know is like like I don't

(59:46):
want to be like the fun police,but like if you're graffitiing
a skate park and then councilcomes and like goonies that off,
they blast the ground likeruining the surface.
So the more you clean it off,the more you paint it clean.
Paint clean, the rougher itgets and it's um not good for
the lifespan of that facility.
So and then?

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
because, like, but it can be resurfaced, but that's
just another big mission, isn'tit?
Yeah, it's never the same.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Like you know how hard that process was to get the
money for the park in the firstplace.
True, Like you have to gothrough that whole process again
to get the funding to go andfix up what was already fine in
the first place.
But yeah, I mean it happens andat the end of the day it's a
community space and it's ownedby the community.
So if that's what they want todo, they can do whatever they

(01:00:33):
want.
But like from our perspectiveand from a skate perspective, I
would always encourage people tobe like just try and keep the
surface nice.
What if?

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
someone does like a nice mural or a nice piece on it
, like that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah, I would say like, try and keep it to like
the walls or vertical surfacethat you know, less kind of
skate surfaces.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Okay, so tell the graffiti people like, do it on
the vertical walls.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not the boss of skate parks, so
whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Sometimes the council like permits, like artworks to
be done on the floor.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I've seen some skate parks that have been painted
like pussy's got that big shanecross, yeah, yeah, like that,
yeah and that old section, butthat's not gonna be blasted off
and make the ground ruined, sothat's a different case.
I guess they leave it there yeah, I mean yeah, it's always like
every skate park.
It's a case by case scenarioand I don't know, don't have all

(01:01:30):
the answers, but I think it'smore like for us it's when, like
, the new park gets graftimmediately, yeah, immediately.
Come on, guys, give it a coupleof years yeah, yeah again.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Like most people aren't considering the blood,
sweat and tears and years yeahof work that have gone into that
being there.
So it's it's actually good tohear, even for myself, because I
don't take it for granted.
I think we all take it forgranted sometimes yeah, I think
like a lot of the stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
It's probably like a bit of an eye-opener for heaps
of skaters that they don't knowthe backstory about, like people
like you know, trent andCameron, like pushing and
getting and advocating theseparks in the first place.
Or, like you know, council,like the good people at council
that are actually like pushingfor like decent facilities and

(01:02:20):
putting the funding aside forthem.
There's so much going on in thebackground, hello, dog.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
It's good that they're using their power, I
guess, or their position in theskate industry, to do that for
sure, and there's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
you know, over the years I've had so many legends,
I've worked with um at differentcouncils that are like so on
board with what we're doing,they trust us just to let us do
what we do and what we're goodat um, which that's the dream
because, like it's been earnedthough.
Yeah, like sometimes someonewill be like trying to tell you
how to build a skate park fromcounseling and like just let us

(01:02:55):
do it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
You do your job, we'll do our job.
Shut up Cam yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Hey, jock, can we get the next park up?
And I think it's the last onewe've got up, and you know it's
the one in Melbourne've got upand, uh, you know it's the one
in melbourne at paris escapethat's it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
That's it so this is so why?
Why?

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
is this special to you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
that looks so good.
So this one, it's got yourrails is the probably our most
recent build um and again like areally long time in the in the
process and a long time coming.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
It's the vert ramp.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
So that one.
I think the first park wasbuilt in 1977.
And there's been about sixdifferent editions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
One of the OGs man.
The vert ramp was so symbolicyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
So Christian Hussoy, Tony Hawk, Renton Miller, the
Pappas brothers were all skatingthat vert ramp.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Jason Ellis.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yeah, yeah, there's a really sick picture I saw of
him there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Gary Valentine Dom Kekic.
All the big dogs all the bigdogs Legendary stuff, man.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
But so, yeah, I guess why it's important is all that
history.
There was a lot of people thatcommented on, like, what they
wanted the space to be.
And you know, like we, I guesswe wanted it to be cutting edge
to show because I feel like,personally, I feel like
Melbourne's a little bit behindwhat Sydney's at like in terms

(01:04:18):
of, you know, new cutting edgefacilities.
So for us, like at Convict, wedon't always get many Victoria
parks.
So it was like our chance to belike this is right in our you
know backyard, we want to get itright and, yeah, like heaps of
the obstacles in that park, likenot just the vert ramp, were
bought from the old park, likethe flat bar the flat down rail

(01:04:43):
was bought from the old parkinto the new.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
The square one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Sick.
I noticed that in some of theclips I saw the bank to ledge is
the same proportions as the oldbank to ledge, um like yeah, a
lot of the obstacles have comethrough and that's directly from
the community.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
um, what's that one feature on the pyramid, is it a
little like quarter pipe, likeso you on the back?

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
So there's like a sort of cantilevered quarter
pipe that's the back end of thepipe.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
He's on it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
He's on it, he's a skater.
Now we're going to make Jock askater, whether he likes it or
not.
Yeah, what is that thing?
So you've got the flat rail.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
So you've got a little cantilevered quarter pipe
on the back, so granite that Isee it from this angle you
legend job he's lost it.
Yeah, yeah, there's like thistiny little granite edge that,
um, it's just like a little bitof a variation on the coping.
I was wondering what that was.
Looks like a little slappylight under the rail, yeah so
that's another thing.

(01:05:41):
Like we you know, I should shoutout andrea from our office, um
or bosh he.
He spent so much time designingthis park and like hours and
hours and hours at night.
But he was also like down thereon site, like helping them with
install, making sure we got itright.
Um and you opted for tileground so that's um bluestone

(01:06:05):
paving which is iconic in mel,like all the city streets of
bluestone.
So, that was a big thing that wewanted to get in there.
That big chunk of granite, thatblock, that's pretty sick.
The mini ramp was come.
Another one, like the old parkhad a mini ramp, so we wanted to
bring that through and alsoallow for that kind of skill
progression like start on themini ramp, work your way up to

(01:06:25):
the vert ramp, Become anOlympian Dude.
I saw a guy the other day doingswitch 540s on the vert ramp
Switch 540s.
I can't remember his name, butit was like who the hell is it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
We must know him.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Man, I'd have to look on my phone Switch 540s really.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Yeah, I can't even like comprehend that I'm trying
to think I'll send you the clip.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Who it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
could possibly be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
It was a young dude.
Oh my gosh, I knew somethinglike this would come up that I
wouldn't be able to remember.
Oh man, If only I could phone afriend.
Get it if you want.
That's all good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Yeah, so what Switch 540 is on the VRAM?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Yeah, I'll try and find it and put it on the.
We'll get it on the Convict.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Instagram.
Yeah, like I do want to go backto the Olympics, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah, let's do it, let's just go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Like you know, I mean okay.
So how much is it coming up inconversations, in design
meetings, in terms of breedingOlympians?
Because this is just a.
This is the big thing for theculture, this is a big thing for
skateboarding.
Here we are, Where's it going?
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
I mean.
So certain councils willdefinitely be like that's a big
part of their brief is likethese days, like a few of them
in particular, like we want tobe able to, you know, put our
town on the map.
You know, hopefully haveeconomic benefits that will

(01:07:52):
bring people to our town.
You know, like, if you thinkabout the Bondi Bola Rama, for
example, how many people camefor that, what it's doing for
the economy and the little shopsaround the neighborhood.
A lot of the towns are seeingthe commercial benefit of
something like that.
So definitely say, like theLismore project, they're really
keen to like push the trainingaspect and, you know, working

(01:08:13):
with people like donnie fraserto set up um, like competitions
there.
So we will be talking withprofessionals like pro skaters,
people that hold competitionsand getting that kind of
perspective when we're designingit like how can we make this
better for competitions?
What you know, where would youset up for judging um?
You know where, what sort ofbig banger obstacles do we need

(01:08:36):
to put in so that it's going tobring people in um, or like just
certain?

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
things mimicking potentially an olympic skate
park set up, yeah, like we don'tmean, the bowls are one thing,
but yeah the street courses.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
I mean it's a tricky thing like I don't know.
Say, if pussy, for example, haslike a lot of these olympic
level or scale obstacles and youknow I've talked with quite a
few really good skaters that arejust like that it doesn't have
as much flow and the obstaclesare really big and it's not
really what we want to skate dayto day.

(01:09:09):
But then others will be likeit's sick and you know Chloe
Cavell was training there.
I saw her do like a bluntkickflip out the other day, so
young.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
She came to like Did you see her at SLS in Sydney?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
last year, yeah, she was killing it.
She came to like the Adelaidecity skate park opening and I've
seen that, yeah, like she wasripping, yeah, and this is kind
of before she was winning somecomps and I was like, oh, that
girl was really good and thennext level, next minute, she's,
like you know, winning thesecomps, like up there with fraser

(01:09:46):
and young these, oh my god.
Yeah, I mean, what's so hecticis, you know, if you think about
how many um olympic level youknow, karen woolley uh, keegan
palmer, chloe cavall arisa true,a lot of these olympic level
skaters that may podium uhcoming from Australian skate

(01:10:08):
parks that aren't really Olympiclevel training facilities.
They're more like kind of Idon't know like I don't know
non-traditional skate parks.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
They're really young too, all of them people.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
I know it's hectic, it's hectic.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
I mean, I also think it's a product of coming from a
privileged society, like we area privileged society compared to
other parts of the world.
You know where the basic needsare being met for these children
.
Generally, even though it's anexpensive country we live in,
their basic needs are met sothey have the freedom and the
space to go and learn how toskate as good as they can.

(01:10:45):
You know there's a lot ofcountries where kids are having
to get a job really early sothey can put food on the table
and things like that you know so.
I think that could be a productof it as well.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Yeah, like we're extremely lucky in Australia
that, like there is so manydifferent skate parks and you
know like, even coming from NewZealand, I'm like man.
I wish that we had this manyparks at home and there's some
rippers coming out of NewZealand Like a lot of the dudes
moving to Melbourne and thatit's kind of the standard next

(01:11:16):
step you move from like Welly orChristchurch and you move to
Melbourne, nixon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Osborne, for example.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
He rips oh man, he's killing it right now.
Yeah, yeah, he's a super humble, nice guy as well.
Yeah, I think he's related toLee Ralph, right, is he?
I think it's his uncle, ormaybe I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
That explains it.
Lee Ralph is the biggest legend.
Yeah, wild man.
Okay, do you know who Lee Ralphis?

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
fair enough he's old verse skater from the 80s, not
gonna pretend.
Old verse skater from 80s.
He's our best export, I reckon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Yeah, but I mean iconic, Iconic.
And an artist, profound artistas well.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Man, why does New Zealand produce the goods Like?
I actually think New Zealandproduces the best comedians in
the world as well, man, yeah,it's so weird Dude like what's
going on there, like Flight ofthe Conchords dude.
I feel like those guys, thoseguys are chords, dude, like, I
feel like those guys who elsehas come out of there?
That's funny as shit.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Heaps of stuff yeah, they crack me up best sense of
humor I saw um, is it what saysbrett mckenzie?
Like when I was in and I waslike, oh my god, like real
starstruck, like just walkingpast, like oh my gosh, yeah,
they're, yeah, they're so funnyyeah and there's that kid.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Isn't that movie, the Hunt for the Wilder People?

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Yeah with Sam Neill.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
With Sam Neill and the kid in that he's really like
coming, he's the same kid, thatwas like in that ad.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Have you seen that ad ?
And it's like, oh, my dad'slike you know, like, and the
dad's a full stoners and it'slike a don't do drugs and drive
ad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so funnyand like I think the comedy
comes because it's just sonatural, like it's not super
forced, I don't know yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
That's right, it's classic dude.
Well, I want to ask as we startto wrap it up, you know, I want
to sort of put Leon on the spot, Like you know what would you
personally like to see more ofin skate park design, and don't
just say flat rails?

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
That's what's hard.
When I'm doing my videos I tryand highlight what's good about
the park, what's bad about it.
I would be easily happy with along flat bar and a ledge, but
not everyone would be.
A lot of people say that, yeah,a ledge, but not everyone would
be.
A lot of people say that, yeah,but just a park that has
variety enough for a likemajority of people like a bit of
transition some manuals, somelike rails and stuff run up,

(01:13:37):
which I never considered was agood thing that you had to plan
for.
But even like progressionthings too.
So like it's something smallerand then something bigger.
Like you said about the miniramp leading to the vert ramp.
Like if there was no mini ramp,people would be like why is
there just a giant vert ramphere and nothing else?
Like I can't even learn how todrop in here?
Like little progression kind ofsteps.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I think like, yeah, like that Prawn skate park.
I say that in the most Kiwi way.
It's meant to be like Prawn, Ithought it was Prawn.
I say Pra way, it's meant to belike paran, but I thought it
was pran.
I say probably because I'vebeen saying but yeah, like it's

(01:14:20):
legendary that park's got likethe little flat bar and then
there's the big, big flat barand it's sort of like these kind
of um skill development.
Yeah, within the features umbut yeah, it is interesting from
our perspective.
Like you know, what park don'tyou like for, for whatever?
Like we, we like to hear thefeedback as well.
Like, yeah, what don't you likeand why or what could you have
done better?
Um, because, like you know, Ifeel like there's a few

(01:14:42):
different companies designingand building parks in australia
and, like everyone, they're allsuper passionate.
But you know, we all, we've allgot to like, learn and keep
evolving as we go, or else youbecome, like you know, you're no
longer relevant, right so Ithink progression we definitely
try and get feedback from ourusers, especially if it's in a

(01:15:03):
place that you're not like umgoing all the time, like, say,
wa will hit, like ben bowring upor someone like that.
That's like skating the localparks that we've designed and
built and be like what could wedo better?
like you know, and he'll tellyou straight up like, oh, you
got the slappy curb wrong, orlike you know.
So, like I was saying today,like our more recent parks will

(01:15:26):
have a bigger angle on theslappy curb and we might have
dropped it 25 mil from like fiveyears ago.
And you know you've, you've gotto go skate the park and figure
it out and see what's workingis there any granite slappy
curbs around?
just asking for a friend uh,there's one in melbourne called
highlands north and that'sgranite and it feels sick would

(01:15:46):
that chip away faster though,because flappy is like you're
bashing into it Depends how youbuild it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
Yeah, true.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Well, you think a slight angle on the face of the
curd helps.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
So a bit of an angle and it depends like, yeah, like
how many kind of segments it'sgoing to be in and how the
joints work.
Okay, yeah there's so much toit.
Oh, dude, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Such an eye-opener and me and my friends talk about
this all the time I neverthought I would see this level
of skate park design in mylifetime, to the point where
it's like beyond my imagination,beyond my wildest dreams,
things are being created that Inever even thought of.
So my first ever skate moviewas the Search for Animal Chin.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Yes, and then?

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
I seen they had a vert ramp with a spine a roll in
.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
They put a little mini ramp on the platform, the
mini ramp on the top, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
And at the time I was like I just couldn't conceive
that someone had that idea youknow, and I thought well, that's
it, like that's the pinnacle ofdesign.
Now, look at that, wow.
And in some ways I'm a littlebit resentful because I'm like I
wish they happened when I wasyoung and fresh and could enjoy
them a bit more.
But I do enjoy them because itfeels like there is something

(01:17:01):
for everyone, like even you know, you ask Leon what he likes,
you know flat rails and otherstuff.
But you know, for me I'm reallyhappy with, like a fun manual
pad, a nice mini ramp, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
Did?

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
we should Maybe a slappy curb and I'm pretty
satisfied.
But I want a Euro gap, a funEuro gap, yeah, and it's just.
All my needs are being met.
You know, it's amazing.
And then, when I want to stepit up, yeah, there's a higher
ledge and yeah, there's a littlehubbub.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
So well, that's what I was saying.
Like, next time, if you comedown to melbourne, come to our
office I'll show you how it alllike, yeah, the different steps
in the process and, like youknow, behind the scenes, like
even if we're doing another parkin sydney, we can like stop in
and show your designs and sortof how we consider things.
Um, cause it's an interestingprocess and they'll definitely

(01:17:52):
be, like you know, quite often,like the one simple thing is
less is more is generally better, because if you try and cram
too many obstacles in youcan't get the right line.
Um, but yeah, like that's oneof my favorite questions at a
consultation is, like, you know,if you could have one feature
in this park, what would it be?
Yeah, because like that helpspeople go from like, I want a

(01:18:16):
mini ramp, I want a rail, I wantthis, I want that.
But then, like you know, it'sreally hones in on like, for all
this time I just wanted akicker over a hydrant, yeah, or
something like that, or aperfect kicker to kicker, and.
And then it's like for us, youknow, we remember those
conversations when we're back inthe office and like, oh man,
got to get that right.
Like you know, that guy was sopassionate about this and this

(01:18:39):
is going to be his local, or heruns a skate shop and he's like,
got all these kids that wantthis, and so, yeah, that's sort
of one of our dominant questions.
I would say, like just tryingto figure out what people
actually want.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
You might find the gap that's missing from other
parks too, like the kicker overthe hydrant.
Oh, for sure, no one's got that.
It makes sense to put it in.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Yeah, and, like you know, if we're doing consults,
we'll get people to.
You know, have you seenanything in parks in America?
Or you know like, oh man, Iwent to copenhagen a while back
and did you go to copenhagenopen I didn't, but I went to
heaps of skate parks and justskate around the city and stuff
and that city is like the cityof the future.
Um, I've heard that they'rethinking big and they think like

(01:19:22):
they're making like spotsthroughout the city that are
good for skating, rather thanjust like you know oh, dude,
like I can't believe you'resaying that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
I mean, uh, past guest and friend, dr indigo
willing works at sydneyuniversity.
She has a fellowship andthey're they're basically
working on skatable cities anddesign and how making like art
features skatable and they'regoing through this full process
at the at the moment.
So look out for that.

(01:19:50):
Well, yeah, like at the end ofthe day.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
You want people hanging out in cities.
You want young people, you know, having somewhere to go, not
just skate parks, like stuffthat they can hang out in the
city right and just session aledge.
There's.
Um, I heard roon glithbergtalking because he kind of is
involved in the skate parkdesign and he was talking about
this project.
I can't remember.
It's somewhere over like europe, I don't know if it's

(01:20:14):
copenhagen, but it's like a fulldrainage system that's all
concrete and it's like a drainthat they've pretty much made
skatable so it can handle thecity's.
Um, you know, water runoff whenit's inundated and then it
dries out and it's's like thatmultifunctionality that's.
You know that forward thinkingis.
You know it's so importantbecause, like, we're running out

(01:20:37):
of space and we've got to thinkabout what's the best way we
can do things that's going tosuit all sorts of different
people.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
Yeah, it's exciting, man.
You know, like I was justthinking about the old Martin
Place, the old Martin Place pitwas an amphitheater.
I was just thinking about theold Martin Place, the old Martin
Place pit was an amphitheatre.
But the ledges on the bottomstep became so skatable and it
was just built in a circulardesign.
But then at the other end ofthe Martin Place there was an
artistic sculpture.
There was like a bunch ofpyramids on top of each other
and then one side of it was likejust a flat bank, and I mean

(01:21:04):
that was the most skated flatbank in Sydney.
Man, it was a metal flat bankand it was never designed for
that.
So it was like skatable art andthis is what Indigo is working
on.
Is like this happening more incities?
Let's have this beautiful pieceof art sculpture that's
skatable.
Why not?
Because the reality is it'sgoing to just get skated anyway.

(01:21:25):
Legends are going to get skated.
They're going to get the capstaken off them.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Yep, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
And let's embrace it and, like you said,
forward-thinking countries likeNorway.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
I don't know.
They're just so much moreprogressive than us.
When I was young we would skateAirtier Square in Auckland and
you've probably seen it.
It's been on like manualmagazine covers and stuff.
There's this water fountain,that's like these perfect kind
of sort of zigzag flat banks andit was so fun and it had like a
three stair and like thislittle ramp in with a ledge on

(01:21:59):
the side.
That was like ground to likenothing.
But you know, at that time, Idon't know, like early mid 90s,
there wasn't many like fit forpurpose progressive skate parks
and these spots were like reallygood.
And now like they've left thatthere.
They made it, you know, kept itskatable with the different
versions of, as they've like um,rebuilt that square, but they

(01:22:21):
left the like fountain skatableand I don't know, man, I love
that like sentimental meaning ofthose little things, that like
skaters think about something insuch a different way and it's
so important to them.
And like you know, talking toyou guys through the cannonball
and the Darling HarbourBrickbanks, like it's, you know,

(01:22:42):
I remember like the guy sort ofat that consultation for Glebe
telling us about what he wantedto put in the park and like the
passion and you know to go toall that effort to bring like
pictures and 3Ds and like, oh,if you need more information,
I've got it.
And you know like what otherhumans have this attachment to
the landscape and like the urbanrealm, like that.

(01:23:03):
That's what's different.
Skaters are weirdos, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
They're weirdos because they're artists.
It's like art Skateboarding isart.
It's like there's such a bigcomponent to it and so, because
of the art aspect and thecreativity, it's emotional.
So that guy you're talkingabout he had an emotional
attachment to that piece ofurban structure.
Yeah, yeah, there's an emotionalattachment to it, you know, and

(01:23:33):
especially if you land a goodtrick on it, you know, and then
it gets torn down.
It's like, it's emotional, it'slike, oh, remember when I did
that kickflip of that gap andit's not there anymore.
And then it becomes, becomeslike you know, uh, what's the
word?
Like, just legendary, like, um,urban, you know urban myth that
so-and-so did a kickflip overthat and I don't know.
That's what I'm rambling a bit,but you know what I mean but
that's.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
That's why, like, I don't know, like I love seeing
any skate park designer orarchitect or whatever that's
trying to like, push it andthink big and create something
that you haven't seen before,like, yes, we've got to get the
fundamentals right that suits,like progression and um, you
know, an old school leg skater,but also trying to do something

(01:24:11):
that's a little bit different,like that feature at pran that's
got like the, the sort of weirdhip with the um cantilevered
quarter and the little graniteledge and yeah, yeah that looks
so fun that's an essentialfeature like trying to make
something that just looksdifferent than what you've seen
in a skate park before.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Um do the guys at convict kind of feel like this
is the.
I know it's one of your latestprojects, but it's kind of like
the pinnacle of all the years ofhard work uh, like I think
we're, yeah, at the moment we'resuper proud of this.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
It's just opened, um, and you know like it was a
struggle, it was a long project,there was a real struggle.
And like, yeah, like definitely, you know like it was a
struggle, it was a long project,it was a real struggle.
And like, yeah, like definitely, you know we designed that
whole space, so the skate park,the pedestrian areas, the vert
ramp, the mini ramp, the court,the balustrade and fence that
goes around the whole thing.

(01:25:02):
Like I think there's a lot ofthinking that's going into that,
like keeping people separatedfrom the busy road.
You know there used to be a lotof antisocial behavior and drug
use because the vert ramp wasat the front side of the park,
blocking views in and like itkind of became a hub for like
dodgy characters.

(01:25:23):
So the vert ramp's been moved,so it's actually a whole new
vert ramp.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
Oh, I actually thought it was the OG one.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Oh, because the OG1 is against the wall the og1 was
on melvin road, like the road onokay I don't know how to
explain.
I'm trying to point behind me,the other side, but basically,
um, so we've added a foot offlat and reduced the height just
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
But copied the curve, transition curve.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Yeah, so it's pretty much like dude.
There was some very passionatevert skaters.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Did Renton Miller weigh in on that one?
Surely.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
It's a big time.
Of course he does, I mean he'sthe king of that fight.
Yeah, he's very passionate.
I don't think anyone would haveskated that vert more than him.
Oh man, he kills it, still killsit, but yeah, like.
So by putting that at the backof the site, you're opening up
views, you're making it safe for, like young kids that you know

(01:26:18):
like there's a whole lot of sortof different thinking about
like these social aspects oflike what we're doing and like
giving young people you know,young female skaters somewhere
that they feel safe and like notdodgy dudes lurching and all
that you know.
So, yes, it's definitely one ofour proud moments and like it's
25 years of convict next year.
So for us, like I think we'veworked on this park like three

(01:26:43):
different times and for us tokind of be re-engaged and to be
like you know this is wherewe're at from, like where we
started, at some definitely areal proud moment and like the
first roll, like all the guyswere so happy, just like rolling
around, like oh oh dude.

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
Looks amazing yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
Well, congratulations to you, come skate it.
Yeah, we will.
Let's do a mission down toMelbourne, leon.

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
I'm keen, it looks so nice.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
Take the podcast on the road.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Yeah, I've got a portable setup.
I'd love to actually.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
Talk to some skaters down there.
But well, congratulations toyou and the convict team,
obviously.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
Cheers boys Big project.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Yeah, keep doing.
If you're out there and you'relistening and you want to get
something moving in your localarea, whether you're in a remote
place or otherwise, just starttaking action, because only
action brings about change.
You can talk about it and thinkabout it, but harass your
councils.
Put it on them, they work foryou.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
Yeah, man, it's public space, space it's
taxpayers money.
You know, if you get enoughpeople weighing in, stuff will
happen.
And like I've seen it, I swearlike every skate park that we're
working on and talking to thatcommunity they're like oh, we've
been waiting for this for 10 or15 years.
You got no idea.
And I'm like I have some idea,just like everyone's talking

(01:28:11):
like that they've been waitingfor so long, like that byron bay
one they were.
You know they've been waitingfor so long and I remember the
passion and the pressure to getit right after so long.
Yeah, it was a good moment thatwe're all, like you know, very
proud, like once we get a parkbuilt and we feel like we've
done a good job, like it's agood moment, dude, how are you

(01:28:36):
feeling Rick Ready to leave itthere?

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Is that okay?
I don't know.
Yeah, anything else you want tosay you got to go now.

Speaker 3 (01:28:40):
I've definitely got a new respect for like skate park
building after learning howmuch goes into it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
I'll just say thanks for having us on and I feel like
it's good to have like a voicein Australia that sort of you
know as a skater listening tolike Chima's podcast and like
these really influential skaters.
It's epic to see what you guysare doing and I know like that's
a lot of effort to set up apodcast and time and all that.

(01:29:09):
So appreciate it and full powerto you, man.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
I hope for I hope it uh keeps going well hold on,
brother, mr simon bogolo,everybody and thanks, leon, and
shout out jock you legend, loveyou buddy, love you buddy, we're
good Beautiful.

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#237 - Simon Bogalo: Convic and The Evolution of Skate Park Innovation (ft. Leon Paxton)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#237 - Simon Bogalo: Convic and The Evolution of Skate Park Innovation (ft. Leon Paxton)