In partnership with Vans
The connections between architectural form and skateboarding go back to the beginnings of the sport – modernist ideals, brutalist aesthetics and adapted materials all contributing to a more radical, progressive and vertical style of skating.
It was back in the 1970s, in the basement areas beneath London’s Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall, that architect Norman Engleback’s application of smooth, connected concrete zones and ramped walls of a decade earlier first encouraged a skating community that continues to thrive today. Engleback’s Undercroft is even recreated in the Tony Hawk Pro Skating 4 video game.
Now, skateboarding’s London architecture adventure makes another radical progression with a new Vans West End store that merges retail and community space thanks to a monumental, 200 sq m ramp. The material used? Not industrial concrete, but epicurean, cream-coloured, epoxy-veined travertine limestone.
Designed by Milan-based architecture firm Andrea Caputo Studio and constructed from a steel frame and a single block of travertine stone, the multi-transition ramp is an extended half-pipe configuration running the entire length of the Oxford Street store. It comprises a quarter with pool coping at one end, a ‘Euro Gap’, and a selection of ledges and a rail, before ending on a ceiling-scraping vertical.
The mini indoor park’s fully mobile and interchangeable travertine modules can be deployed for seating and merchandise display for Vans’ cult footwear and accessories when not in use for skating.
Green epoxy injected into the stone’s veins and natural faults and polished on site creates colour and provides extra grip for skaters’ wheels. ‘This is primarily a functional, not a decorative, approach,’ says Caputo. ‘The epoxy creates a new conversation with the Vans brand and makes a direct connection with the skaters themselves.’
Designed with the collaborative input of the Vans skate team – including Martino Cattaneo, Helena Long, Josh Young, Willow Voges Fernandes and Jordan Thackeray – the ramp will be the beating heart of the store, says Caputo, intended for skate lessons, demos and open skate sessions by the Vans team and local skate schools.
For Vans’ retail displays and art exhibitions, Caputo also conceived plywood units, their fronts given a carved appearance via a process that echoes the grinding effect of riding skateboard trucks (the metal parts) on ramps, coping and rails. The Lovenskate collective’s series of decks and posters is currently on show.
The store’s industrial concrete floor and exposed-duct ceiling echo the brutalism and industrial style of Engleback’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. ‘With this project, we wanted to generate a tension between neutrality and functionality, so we took an anti-design approach,’ says Caputo. ‘We did what we needed to do but we didn’t over-do or over-design.’
‘Integrity and progression were key to the project's success,’ adds Andreas Olsson, vice president and general manager of Vans EMEA. ‘Skateboarding is the Vans DNA and it was really important to build something real and credible, that is 100 per cent authentic for the best skaters in London. Hijacking traditional materials and adding epoxy means insane speed and new opportunities for grinding.’
The skaters’ verdict? ‘The ramp has it all – rails, banks, transitions and even wallies (wall rides),’ says Vans skater Helena Long. ‘The travertine is insane – the type of material I remember going on skate treasure hunts for, around the city. It is gold.’
Vans West Ed, 214 Oxford St, London W1D 1LA.
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