Location: Malmö, Sweden
Status: Built
Scale: 56252FT
Situated at the center of Värnhemstorget, a public square in Malmö, Sweden, this sculpture was designed to bring new energy into the plaza. As fun as they are, traditional skateparks often serve to separate skateboarders from the urban fabric, and in doing so, miss a tremendous opportunity. Territories intended for public leisure and enjoyment that remain vacant and grow alienating could benefit from the vibrance and energy skateboarders bring to the spaces they so passionately inhabit.
As a designer, I wanted to superimpose a second agenda on this project. Not simply to create the “ultimate spot”—but also something iconic, to give identity to square.
While we exalt the face as an object of perfect symmetry and beauty, we rarely step back to appreciate its strangeness. A lip, an eye, a nose—if you’d never seen a face you’d assume they were perfect strangers. The project took these curious geometries as a starting point for design, and worked backwards to arrive at something both skateable and beautifully strange, to be enjoyed by both skateboarders and the public alike.
