When love is all we have

Damascus Skate Park

maier landschaftsarchitektur

War

Since 2011 a civil war has been raging in Syria that has already cost half a million lives. Time and again the capital Damascus has also been the scene of conflicts, which over the last eight years has repea­tedly brought almost unima­gi­nable suffe­ring on its people.

Hope

maier land­schafts­ar­chi­tektur (Maier Land­scape Archi­tec­ture), in coope­ra­tion with skate-aid and SOS Children’s Villages World­wide, planned and built a skate park which opened in July 2019. That alone is a feat. Moreover, the Damascus Skate Park is func­tional as well as high-quality, inclu­sive and open to all perfor­mance classes.
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Audience

Damascus Skate Park was built on a public square, right next to a school. This means that its use is in reality already assured.

Skate parks by maier land­schafts­ar­chi­tektur always aspire to appeal to the widest possible audi­ence. From a sports func­tional point of view, this means that such a park needs to appeal not only to advanced skaters, but also to begin­ners and those not so expe­ri­enced. In Damascus this is even truer than else­where, because this sport is not very common here yet. For that reason the social and communal importance of the faci­lity is certainly even greater than it would be, for example, in Germany.

Facilities

Damascus Skate Park, which is actually called the Qudsaya Skate Park, takes all this into account. The large concrete areas next to the skating compon­ents offer enough space for newco­mers to be able to roll through the park or to give the sport a try by slowly feeling their way up the mini-ramp. At the same time, expe­ri­enced skaters will also get their money’s worth by going through the various rails, banks, tran­si­tions and curbs.

In addi­tion to mini-ramp and street sections, a playing area comprises part of the complex. It provides a large equipped play­ground, sanded areas, communal spaces and a public toilet. Finally, the entire square was replanted. As a result there is some­thing for every age group.

What do you think?

Realization

The park was built using in-situ concrete from local buil­ding mate­rials. The required steel elements such as edges, pipes and grids also come from Syria. In addi­tion to the coping on the mini-ramp exten­sion, several edges of the street sections were furnished with local Syrian marble. Not only does it look good, but it also makes every skater’s heart beat faster because of the perfect grind and slide condi­tions.

Some elements have been further refined with mosaic. This in turn creates a refe­rence to Syria, espe­ci­ally Damascus and ther­e­fore even more poten­tial to iden­tify with it. The property is open to all sides and — even more importantly — acces­sible to ever­yone. Skate­parks are for ever­yone!

Kids, be kids

In addi­tion to the acti­vists from skate-aid, many Syrians and a specia­list from maier land­schafts­ar­chi­tektur were present during the cons­truc­tion itself. A lot of volun­teer work, many unpaid workers and much support from local resi­dents — from supp­lying food to the washing of laundry — marked the cons­truc­tion phase.

Since its opening the skate park has been used by many school­children every day and is an inte­gral part of the neigh­bour­hood. Children from the SOS Children’s Village, which lies a few kilo­me­tres away, are regu­larly driven to the Damascus Skate Park. There they get skating lessons from expe­ri­enced skaters.

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A Smile

skate-aid, the SOS Children’s Villages and maier land­schaft­ar­chi­tektur have already planned, imple­mented and also sustain­ably operated similar faci­li­ties in many crisis areas around the world — for example in Afgha­ni­stan, India and Pales­tine.

The wonderful thing about this arran­ge­ment is the inter­ac­tion of effec­tive huma­ni­ta­rian initia­tive and design skills. This results in not only enorm­ously important huma­ni­ta­rian projects, but also high quality sports and leisure faci­li­ties.

The Damascus Skate Park gives hope to people and conjures a smile on their faces. There really could not be any better reason for buil­ding a sports and leisure complex.

We did this.

Compa­nies involved and project data

Design

maier land­schafts­ar­chi­tektur
Rösra­ther Straße 769
D‑51107 Köln

Client

SOS Children’s Villages
Hermann-Gmeiner-Fonds Deutsch­land e.V.
Ridler­straße 55
D‑80339 München

Funding

skate-aid inter­na­tional e.V. 
Wall­straße 86
D‑10179 Berlin 

 

Address

Qudsaya Skate Park
Damaskus
Syrien
33°32’52.9“N 36°12’42.8“E

Photos

skate-aid
Julian Fülster

Opening

15.07.2019

Text

Johannes Bühl­be­cker
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