skateboard obstacles, billboard homes

Toronto's downtown has built-in barriers to skateboarders and prevent the homeless from sleeping outdoors.

Across the city, seating areas, standing areas, sculptures — any place where people might be inclined to loiter or play — have sprouted an array of armrests, ribs, "fins," stone knobs and even klieg lights in an effort to keep us from getting too comfortable.

This is the essence of the exclusionary and separation trends that have been overtaking rich urban environments throughout North America. It is sometimes called the "suburbanization of the city." At its core is the vast amount of publicly accessible private land.

On the other side of the spectrum: the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) home design competition is over and Metropolis Magazine has the story. 'pMod', the first prize winner, recycles billboards and train cars into a modular home with some great features.

Comments

[nicolas]

Another common way is that they place “metal discs in the joins of these makeshift skate ramps. These discs prevent a skateboarder from getting any speed or distance on these runs. The same concept can be applied to hand rails to prevent dangerous riding stunts on hand rails.

They do so to create a defensible space... to get rid of skateboarders :(

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