Eyethu Hout Bay A catch up with Lawden Holmes, project architect on the Eyethu Hout Bay Skate Park initiative

E y e t h u H O U T B A Y S K A T E P A R K

A Dream, Realised!

We catch up with Lawden Holmes, architect and project co-ordinator on the Eyethu Hout Bay Skate Park, previously featured in our journal section of ourJune 2019 issue, to find out all about the implementation of this community project and the benefits of the project on the people of Hout Bay.

The Eyethu Hout Bay Skate Park is a 960m 2 community-driven and community-designed skate park, situated at the gateway of Hout Bay and at the confluence point of various neighbourhoods, coming together for use of the social amenities. It is developed at the core of a larger public space that includes a multipurpose sport field, a community hall, and a future public family park. The project is unique as it is a privately developed public space on city-owned land driven by a grassroots initiative, which is one of the first of its kind in Cape Town.

The skate park offers a unique opportunity for social integration to be fostered amongst its diverse user groups that spearheaded the project whilst an ever-growing skate community persisted. This guaranteed a success to the project at its inception, knowing that the delivery of a public space would have community buy-in and ownership from a social perspective. This skate park community and skate leaders come from three neighborhoods scattered across Hout Bay. The settlement named Imizamo Yethu is adjacent to the skate park, Hangberg is located across the bay, and the Valley is nestled at the centre of Hout Bay. Notably these three neighborhoods are unparalleled to one another, when considering their cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. However, the youth of these three neighbourhoods share a common interest for the love of skating and have fostered incredibly unprejudiced friendships over the years. The city applauded the initiative to take the youth off the streets and provide a much needed safe environment where the youth could not only practice their desired sport but also participate in a broader life-skills training opportunity facilitated by the after school programmes and the mentors.

As such, the location of the skate park was equally important for the space to function well and safely. This became a negotiation with the city to provide us with land located near an already functioning 'community hub' that needed additional types of activity. This was to ensure the convivial nature of the public space would be used by all and survive. The design was done through a process of community participation workshops

with the leading skaters. This approach ensured that there were no lines of collision amongst users, as well designing areas of opportunity for varying levels of skating progression.

The design emphasises interactive spectatorship whereby the architect proposed wide, raised and flat platforms adjacent to the ramps, which allows the younger youth from the neighbouring communities to engage and learn from the more experienced skaters and spectators, thereby fostering new relationships and opportunities for mentoring.

The key design element is a concrete skin draped over the compacted and shaped terrain, with expressed black steel edging on all corners. A simple, monochromatic canvas allows the vibrancy, colour and energy of the youth to be expressed within the space.

community in any aspect?

Q: From concept to delivery, do you feel that

the site met your expectations?

A: Yes, the site was ideally located for diverse community use, as well as from a safety perspective. The site (Hout Bay Sports Ground) has large user groups from soccer clubs, basketball teams, skateboarders and spectators. This provides amazing social interaction and community integration between the various user groups.

Q: Have you seen the park directly benefit the

Hangberg, run by Indigo Youth Movement who set up support structures with mentors for at-risk youth. It's also seen a Hout Bay skate boarding community grow in size with a huge increase in friendships and informal mentoring. We also see frequent visitors from outside Hout Bay.

Q: Is the site fully complete? Are more changes

or additions being made?

The skate park is 100% complete and has been used extensively from June 2019. We have a landscaping plan ready to be implemented, however, we are waiting for the City Of Cape Town’s Family Park project to commence prior to implementing anything further.

Q:As a skate park, do you feel that the site

meets more than just skating needs?

The skatepark and skateboarding is the tool, but the Eyethu Hout Bay skatepark set out to achieve community cohesion and integration of various neighborhoods in Hout Bay. Through the creation of large social platforms around the skatepark, we are seeing incredible social interactions between the skaters as well as spectators.

Q: Did you experience any issues during the

implementation of the project?

A: We experienced numerous issues. The first was that during our fundraising in 2017 there was a fire at Imizamo Yethu, which devastated a large part of it. A number of our children who attended our Saturday skate3 clinics were affected, and we temporarily became a disaster relief initiative to help our kids and their families. We also had a taxi-violence murder less than 15m away from the construction site. We had issues with water during the Cape Town Drought – a larger issue than would have been expected. Numerous breakings into our site office and a few run-ins with dodgy characters.

Q: Did you meet your project “budget”?

A: No, the project ran over the stipulated contract time and value, due to numerous unforeseeable circumstances. The project team and donors were very understanding and negotiated favorable solutions in the spirit of the project.

Q: Why do you think a skate park would

be the most beneficial public space for the community?

A: There were already numerous groups of skateboarders from the various communities whom all needed a safe central space to enjoy their common passion. Our interest in community cohesion and safe recreational public space delivery, a skatepark was the most obvious choice.

Q: What’s the next initiative on the horizon?

A: We have founded Eyethu Initiatives as a non-profit company to consult on any future public space projects on the horizon. There are one or two projects in the pipeline which we are looking to assist with. We have experience in marketing, architecture, planning and urban design. We all have day jobs and work on Eyethu Initiatives in our spare time.