Skatepark designers Nine Yards

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Skatepark Designers Nine Yards"

Podcast: The Documentary Podcast
Host: Sean Allsop, BBC World Service
Episode Date: August 3, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Documentary Podcast goes behind the scenes with Nine Yards, the innovative Dutch skatepark design-and-build collective responsible for several of Europe’s most innovative skateparks, including the Paris 2024 Olympic course and beloved local parks in the Netherlands. Host Sean Allsop explores how Nine Yards merges creativity, technical skill, and community engagement to create spaces that shape and sustain skate culture—while tackling the nuanced challenge of revamping community landmarks without eroding their identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Global Rise of Skateparks

• Skateboarding’s Shift: Once an underground, DIY scene, skateboarding now boasts over 18,000 public skateparks worldwide—a boom driven not by city planners, but a culture that grew from surf-inspired street skating and a drought-era hack: empty Californian pools. (05:46 – 06:46)
• Olympic Spotlight: The Paris 2024 Games cemented skateboarding’s status; Nine Yards played a key role in realizing Olympic-standard parks in partnership with American firm California Skateparks. (09:47 – 10:36)

2. Nine Yards’ Origins: DIY to Professionalism

• Start in a Greenhouse: Founder Jeroen van Eckerbond and friends began building ramps in his father's greenhouse. Their efforts scaled from makeshift local installations to full-fledged parks. (07:10 – 08:27)
• The Early Hustle: As teens, Jeroen and his friends hauled their creations to neighboring towns, often with parental help, eventually winning city support for a public indoor park—Pier 15, Breda. (08:36 – 09:47)

"We just built ramps of old pallets and plywood, then... a whole skatepark in my dad's place, including a DJ booth and bar. It was getting more skatopia than my dad’s company." – Jeroen van Eckerbond (07:53)

3. The Art and Science of Skatepark Design

• The Workshop: Design starts in a cluttered workshop in Breda, filled with ramps-in-progress and high-tech CNC machines for precision shaping—the tiniest carpentry flaw is felt beneath a skateboard’s small wheels. (03:19 – 05:46)
• Design Process: Ideas begin on paper. The team iterates with sketches, blending personal experience as skaters with professional design practices. (12:28 – 13:39)

4. Community: Culture Made Concrete

• Redesigning Olympian Plyne: Nine Yards faces a special challenge updating one of Amsterdam’s oldest skateparks, keenly aware of the space’s emotional value to its users. Feedback sessions reveal deep local attachment—residents want improvements but bristle at change. (11:20 – 14:38)

"You can build the best facilities, you can put a lot of money in, but in the end, you can’t buy culture or community... you have to build it right, respect the heritage." – Jeroen van Eckerbond (11:47)

5. Flow: The Invisible Ingredient

• Design Philosophy: Nine Yards focuses on creating “flow”—ensuring features connect to allow continuous movement and multiple routes, catering to all abilities and styles. Experience as skaters is essential for anticipating what will work. (16:43 – 17:55)

"You need to have skated in your life. Otherwise, it’s very hard to visualize and actually make a design that works." – Jesper Kuipers (16:59)

6. Precision and Pressure: On the Build Site

• Millimeter Matters: Layouts are scrutinized down to the millimeter; even slight mishaps can affect usability and safety. (17:57 – 18:02)
• Shotcrete and Craft: The specialized material and methods—like hand-shaped shotcrete—descend directly from skate culture’s pool-riding origins, demanding both construction expertise and a skater’s intuition. (23:16 – 24:51)

7. Participation and Community Buy-in

• Feedback Nights: Nine Yards holds “participation evenings” where locals inspect new designs, express hopes and fears, and challenge the team to deliver on heritage and quality. (18:02 – 21:42)
• Emotional Stakes: Even practical upgrades stir anxiety among locals—if the design falls flat, a treasured communal space could be blighted for decades.

“If we screw this up, it's pretty bad for the reputation... there's probably a lot of people that still think we screw up and they just want nothing to change.” – Jesper Kuipers (18:41 – 18:58) “Everybody’s happy, and it’s going to stay here for another 20, 30 years.” – Jesper Kuipers (21:42)

8. Opening Day: From Plan to Playground

• Project Completion: In Alfa aan den Rijn, a city south of Amsterdam, Nine Yards unveils its latest creation—a record-length, flowing skatepark, greeted with local pride and joy.
• Civic Approval: City officials speak to the value of skateparks for youth, social connection, and city life. (27:13 – 28:22)

"It’s important to do the sports, but also to visit each other, to meet each other—and it’s a place to be." – Gretzan Schoutanes, city alderman (28:13)

9. The Deeper Meaning

• Skateparks as Social Fabric: The episode ends with reflection on how skateparks are more than facilities—they’re canvases for self-expression, community creation, and, above all, evidence of passionate users and makers.

“Everybody here in this company... and in general, every skateboarder, is so passionate... It’s not about the money and it’s not about status, it’s just about getting more skateable areas. You want to skate the world.” – Jesper Kuipers (29:28)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the DIY beginnings:
  "First we started, a few pallets. Then it was a rail. Then we had a funbox. Then we had a whole skatepark in my dad’s place... it was more Skatopia than my dad's company." –Jeroen van Eckerbond (07:53)
• On the fragility of designing for community:
  "You can’t buy culture or community, you know, so people still have to adapt what you build. So if it's not done right, then nobody goes to the spot. So it’s also pretty fragile, you have to respect the heritage." –Jeroen van Eckerbond (11:47)
• On perfectionism in building:
  "Any imperfect cut you make in wood or in concrete, you will feel it. Because the wheels are that tiny... you feel literally everything." –Jesper Kuipers (04:41)
• On teamwork and feedback:
  “It’s always difficult to get everybody on board, but I think most of the disciplines are really on board... cool to see that skateboarders embrace the park discipline.” –Jeroen van Eckerbond (21:32)
• On the passion for the craft:
  “It’s not a very respected profession... everybody here is so passionate... it’s not about money, not about status, it’s about getting more skateable areas.” – Jesper Kuipers (29:28)

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Timestamp Guide: Important Segments

• 01:41 – The sound and global growth of skateparks
• 03:19 – Nine Yards’ workshop and design approach
• 06:03 – The origins of skateparks in 1970s California
• 07:10 – Jeroen’s personal journey, from DIY to public parks
• 11:20 – Winning the contract for Olympian Plyne
• 12:28 – Design, sketching, and dealing with community feedback
• 16:43 – The challenge of “flow” in skatepark design
• 18:02 – Participatory design event in Amsterdam
• 22:20 – The build process: concrete pouring and shotcrete
• 25:51 – The grand opening in Alfa aan den Rijn
• 29:28 – Reflections on the purpose and ethos of skatepark building

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The Episode in a Nutshell

“Skatepark Designers Nine Yards” captures not only how world-class skateparks are born, but also what they mean to their communities. The episode is a celebration of the fusion between creative design, meticulous construction, and authentic skate culture—a testament to the belief that great public spaces are crafted not only with concrete, but with passion and profound respect for the users they serve.

Transcript

[Sean Allsop]

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[Sean Allsop]

They're the sounds taking over the world. The sound of grinding rails, the snap of a kickflip and wheels dropping down ramps. It's skate parks. Skate parks have existed for over 50 years. For most of that time, skating was DIY underground. Unwanted skaters found their own spots, built their own ramps, got moved on. But something has shifted. Cities around the world are now competing to build them. There's a boom in demand and a serious profession has emerged to meet it. The skatepark designer.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

You see the sports evolving now. Changing how people see skateparks and how skatepark has to look is also always a mission to change that a little bit.

[Sean Allsop]

I'm Sean Allsop and you're listening to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service where we go inside the creative process. Today I'm in the Netherlands following nine Yards. This is the skatepark design and building company behind some of Europe's most exciting skate parks, including the official skatepark for the Paris 2024 Olympics. And right now they're taking on one of their most personal projects yet, the rebuild of Olympian Plyn, one of Amsterdam's oldest and most beloved skate parks. I wanted to find out what it takes to redesign a space that a community has loved for decades and how you make it better without losing what made it theirs.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Instantly, it felt like a hill.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

It felt like a hill.

[Sean Allsop]

And I traveled to the workshop where it's no surprise to discover nine yard designers are skaters themselves.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Right, Ms. Sean, what you want to do today? My name is Jesper Kuipers. I'm a landscape architect at 9 yards skateparks. We are in the. We call it the headquarters, the 9 yards headquarters. This is our workshop in Breda in the Netherlands. Yeah. Here we design everything and here we build everything.

[Sean Allsop]

Around me are wooden ramps being built, steel beams being put together, and tools of all kinds of. I'm excited to be here, but I have to confess, I'm not a true skater. Like millions, I grew up watching skateboarding in games and on tv. But I never tried it. That is, until skating appeared at the Olympics and I finally took myself down to the local skatepark to try it. Now, don't expect full flips in a 20 foot drop, but I can manage a pretty sick 180 on a skateboard. But what struck me wasn't really the skating. It was the people. Friendly, welcoming, a real community who helped me on my first step on the board. And it made me wonder how much of that comes from the space itself and from the people who build them. Nine Yards have been doing it for over a decade from this workshop in Breda in the south of the Netherlands. And right now they're running three projects at once. Designing one park, building another, and about to open a third. And a lot of that work comes from the workshop.

[Jesper Kuipers]

We have all the tools necessary to build whatever we want. Every unique obstacle that we design in our office, we can also build it ourselves. We have a lot of tools for this. Quite not enough space. This big beast in the corner you see here, this is a CNC machine, a really big one. So in essence what it is, it is a computer controlled, so saw machine. So we can lay down some wood on it, and we draw whatever we want on it, and it cuts it exactly to the millimeter. Any imperfect cut you make in wood, for example, or in concrete, you will feel it. Because the wheels are that tiny of a skateboard. They're like 55 millimeters. You feel literally everything. So you want all of the obstacles that you make to be perfectly shaped. And this machine allows us to do it. They cut whatever you want. We're all skaters ourselves as well. So you test the products you make skating ourselves. You just know what works.

[Sean Allsop]

It's estimated there are now over 18,000 publicly owned skateparks around the world. A Number growing fast. But the origins of this boom are unlikely. They didn't start with city planners or architects, but with a drought and an empty swimming pool.

[Jesper Kuipers]

What happened in the early 70s was that people started skating because it originated from surfing. People started surfing on the streets. You know, that turned into skateboarding. A lot of those guys had no skate parks, so they used backyard pools. During a drought in California, there was a drought. All the backyard pools were not filled up and. And they turned out to be perfect for skateboarding. And those backyard pools, they were all very fancy. They were made from shotcrete, from concrete that you shoot and you shape by hand. And that's kind of where the whole shapes and look and feel that we know of skate parks nowadays comes from those times.

[Sean Allsop]

Skate parks spread throughout the late 70s and 80s, but many were poorly built and fell into disrepair. Skating retreated underground, back to the streets, back to DIY. Then in the late 90s came a new wave. And for nine yards, owner and designer Jeroen, growing up in the Netherlands, that wave arrived at exactly the right moment.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

I'm Jeroen van Eckerbond. I'm owner of 9 yards, working now for a long time in the skateboarding industry. Skateboarding always goes in waves. And I think when I started skating, it was big. Skating was everywhere, man, in music, on the television and commercials. It was really like if you want to be a little bit punky or stand out and you're gonna start skating or something, you know.

[Sean Allsop]

Before the new millennium, publicly owned skate parks were practically non existent. The culture was almost entirely diy. You found a spot, you built what you needed, you made it work. Jeroen was 16 and his dad had a warehouse, which he refers to as the greenhouse.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

We started just to skating everywhere and my dad had a greenhouse, like more space where we could use. And when we were 16, 17, 18, we just building just ramps there, you know, of old pallets and sheets of plywood and then skating. We didn't have a skate park, so we built one bigger and bigger. First we started a few pallets, then it was a rail. Then we had a finbox. Then we had like a whole skate park in my dad's place, including a DJ booth and a bar and everything. In the end, it was getting more skatopia than my dad's company.

[Sean Allsop]

Jeroen soon had nearby villages asking him to make skating demonstrations. He would take his ramps anywhere he was asked to go.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

Just a village called me. Oh, can you do a skateboard demonstration in a city 20 km from here? So we're like, okay, we can do this. But we were still young. We were 16, you know, so we didn't have a license to drive a car or whatever. So in the first two years, my dad, he just drive us around with a car and a trailer every weekend, bring the mini ramps everywhere. And then we build up the mini ramps demo and the mini ramp. And then we called my dad or Hassel's dad, said at the end of the day, like, oh, the trailer is back loaded. Can you pick us up in wherever we are? And then they pack us up. And we did that for, I think for a year, year and a half. And after there, we're getting more requests of doing similar stuff, you know, or building skate parks or really small, really small projects. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Allsop]

Jeroen lobbied the city of Breda for six years for something bigger for the public. By the time he was 23, that lobbying paid off.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

And when I was 23 or something, it was all aligned, man. Then in the end, we found a venue, we found funding, we made a foundation, and the city was happy to support us. So we did a lobby for six or seven years. And when I was 23, we opened the doors of Pier 15 like you're local. Indo Skatepark in Breda.

[Sean Allsop]

From that base in the historic Dutch city of Breda, 100 km south of Amsterdam, 9 yards grew from a local skatepark into a full design and build company, taking on projects across the Netherlands and Beyond. Then in 2021, skating was confirmed as an Olympic sport for Paris. 20, the Games would need skate parks built at Place de la Concorde, one of the most famous public squares in the world. The company leading the design was California Skateparks, the American firm who had been building competition courses for decades. Jeroen wanted 9 Yards to be part of it. So they sent 20 or 30 emails and waited. It worked. 9 Yards became California skatepark's European partner.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

The first build we did was in Rome in front of the Colosseum. There was also an Olympic qualifier event. And then we just started from there. You know, we just. They sent us the drawings. We produced 50% of the cours making the rails, templates, wood templates, send over some crew, bring all the machinery, tools. Super nice experience. Also, you know, first skate in your dad's greenhouse. And then later being in Paris, just an iconic spot, building Olympic skatepark, you know, for me was it like just a really cool adventure doing it, you know, creating together and sharing projects together internationally. And a lot of people are also inspired by each other. So I think that's, that's, that's the cool thing about skatepark building, you know,

[Sean Allsop]

From Paris, nine yards have come home to Amsterdam and to one of their most personal projects yet. Olympian ply has been a skating spot style since the 1970s. It started as an unofficial space. It got a concrete design over 20 years ago. Now the city wants to rebuild it, and nine yards have won the contract to do so. But redesigning a space that a community has shaped and loved for decades carries its own pressure.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

For Olympia, it's the same, you know, because it's a piece of city owned by skaters or by users. And it still is, you know, and then now also the city invest in a better facility. And in the end, I don't know, you can build the best facilities, you can put a lot of money in facilities, but in the end, you can buy culture or community, you know, so people still have to adapt what you build. So if you. If it's not done right, then nobody goes to the spot. So it's also pretty fragile, you know, you have to build, build it right, respect the heritage, make sure that everybody is happy with what you're doing. And. And then you can make really cool spots where people can have a good

[Sean Allsop]

time, you know, the process starts as it always does for 9 yards, not with concrete, but with paper.

[Jesper Kuipers]

This is kind of the design office where we start with designing, and everybody that's sitting here is kind of involved in the design. I think what you see behind me here is just loads of sketches, sketch paper, posters, because that's pretty much where we start with every single project. Yeah, these are some of the first sketch designs we made for the Olympia plan. And now looking back at it, it's pretty funny to see how much has changed and also how much has kind of stayed the same. This is funny thing, this sketch design was not well received at all. The skaters in Olympiaplan, they have a really emotional connection to the space, and it's what makes it so beautiful and still so popular, but also what makes it very difficult to redesign. What we noticed after making this design is that they really don't want anything to change.

[Sean Allsop]

The park has its own language. It's one that takes years of skating to learn to read.

[Jesper Kuipers]

So the scale of this park is pretty big. Then there's this thin line that's a rail here. When you have those kind of stripes, it is called transition. So that's a quarter pipe, for example, or a bank. So that's curved transition or straight transition. And then, yeah, those are I think, the main elements. You have plateaus, transitions, and then some obstacles like rails or ledges or many beds or curbs all between them. We sit down and we just start sketching and this can go on for a couple days or weeks in some case. And then we just take whatever we find good in each of our designs and that's, that's really how we go forward. Would you just make different iterations, different versions, constantly?

[Sean Allsop]

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[Sean Allsop]

I'm Sean Allsop and I'm following the skatepark design company 9 yards. But a skatepark design isn't just about individual features. It's about how they connect. Nine Yards. Call it flow, and it's what separates a great park from a forgettable one.

[Jesper Kuipers]

We can pretty much, if we see something like this, the top view, we can already pretty much see and feel how it works. We Try to read the flow already on the sketch design like this, so we can visualize how this would skate, how this would work, and also how maybe other skaters of higher level or lower level would use it. You need to have skated in your life. Otherwise it's very hard to visualize and actually make a design that works. Does it have a dead end or does it actually present an opportunity to continue through the rest of the skatepark? And does it give an opportunity to maybe turn around and hit a different obstacle? So that's the essence of flow, is that from one part of the skatepark you should be able to reach the other side and go back and do that in maybe a hundred different ways, literally.

[Sean Allsop]

Is it inches? You guys measure everything too?

[Jesper Kuipers]

Yeah, millimeters. Yeah, everything is millimeters.

[Sean Allsop]

A few weeks later and I'm at Olympian Plyne in the heart of Amsterdam. Jesper Jeroen and the 9 yards team are all here with the designs printed out on large boards. It's a participation evening, a chance for the local skating community to see the plans and give their verdict before anything is built.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Good to see you, man. Jerome.

[Sean Allsop]

Jerome.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

Hey, man. See you again. There he is, man.

[Sean Allsop]

I was wondering, where are the guys? I saw the billboards.

[Jesper Kuipers]

We'll be here. And we put up the designs in a little bit, but I think it's mainly just people skating and sometimes they all hop by to check the design.

[Sean Allsop]

If you screw it up, it's sort of screwed up for how many years?

[Jesper Kuipers]

Like with this, with this one, it's pretty bad. I think if we screw this up, it's pretty bad for the reputation. And there's probably a lot of people that, yeah, still think we screw up and they just want.

[Gretzan Schoutanes]

Want.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Exactly. They want nothing to change. But after like 25 years of it being this, it has to change.

[Sean Allsop]

Jesper walks me around the current park. It's a sprawling steel structure. There are rails, ramps and quarter pipes all bolted together, painted in faded colors. Sitting in the open air in the middle of the city on a mild Amsterdam evening, it's busy. There are children on scooters weaving between teenagers on BMXs, a handful of skateboarders working the edges, practicing and cheering each other on. It's loud, fast and well loved, but up close it's showing its age.

[Jesper Kuipers]

It's quite dangerous, and it's not up to the standard of skateparks these days. You see some steel plates actually sticking out their sharp edges, but still it's being used by a lot of people, mostly on scooters, on Inline skates and also a few skateboarders. The design is very old school. Everything is very high. Everything is pretty scary, I would say. It's very slippery. And in the summer, it gets so hot that if you fall on the steel, it burns. But still, people are using it day in, day out.

[Sean Allsop]

There are broadly two types of skatepark design. Street skating based on urban architecture, steps, rails and ledges. And then transition skating, which uses bowls, ramps and quarter pipes. Olympian Plyne has both. And the challenge for 9 yards designers is making them work together for everyone who uses this space. And to my eye, the layout looks similar to what's already here. The ramps and rails roughly where they already were. But I'm learning quickly that to these skaters, every millimeter counts

[Jesper Kuipers]

some fake grass

[Sean Allsop]

at the bottom, you know, sick. Nice. I think it turned out good.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Yeah.

[Alex Horton]

Yeah.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Well, we're happy with some things. They've gone for like a composite transitions,

[Sean Allsop]

which is like, rather than having concrete

[Jesper Kuipers]

or metal, which is very nice.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

This is good.

[Jesper Kuipers]

It's nice if everyone can kind of coexist on it, because if there's a lot of lines that can be found in a lot of roots, a lot of easy to flow, if everything connects to each other. Well, we're just criticizing at the moment while we're wondering if this design is actually going to work in reality. But we look forward to seeing it. So then we'll go from there.

[Sean Allsop]

As the evening winds down, I find Jeroen and Jesper in the corner comparing notes about feedback from the skaters.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

What can we say? I think it was pretty.

[Alex Horton]

Well,

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

it's always difficult to get everybody on board, but I think most of the disciplines are really on board and also really cool to see that. Also the skateboarders embrace the park discipline. That's also really cool to see.

[Jesper Kuipers]

I agree. I woke up kind of anxious and not looking forward to this night, but in the end, it was pretty nice. Everybody's happy, and it's going to stay here for another 20, 30 years.

[Sean Allsop]

And of course, I can't leave without trying some skating myself.

[Jesper Kuipers]

A little bit more, of course. Yes, sir. Wow. 360.

[Sean Allsop]

That's close enough.

[Jesper Kuipers]

And that, dear DVC, is your reporter going in. And the action. 360. Feels good, huh?

[Sean Allsop]

Nine yards leave the evening feeling cautiously positive. But the participation event is just one stage in the process that takes years. While I'm in the Netherlands, they have a concrete pour underway on another project, and they've invited me along. What did you just do? I pulled the starting cord so he Can.

[Alex Horton]

So the motor starts working and he can do his thing. Spray the.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Spray the concrete.

[Sean Allsop]

That is so cool. I'm here with Alex Horton, one of the designers at nine Yards, who's going to be showing me how this stage works.

[Alex Horton]

So what's happening now? The concrete is going in, and these guys here, they're closing it up. So when it's going in, you see all these holes here. It's important that you close these up quickly, or else when it starts to set, then it becomes a real problem if it's not closed up.

[Sean Allsop]

So you kind of erase against a clock to kind of smooth it out.

[Alex Horton]

Yeah.

[Sean Allsop]

The technique they're using is called shotcrete. It's the same method used in those Californian swimming pools in the 70s where skate parks were born. And 50 years on, the material hasn't changed, but what's being built with it has.

[Alex Horton]

Yeah, so what we do, the concrete is called shotcrete. So it's shot into the ship shapes with a. Yeah, with a pressurized hose. So there's pressurized air, which helps the concrete. So the concrete is brought in with the pump over there on this long hose, and then it's pressurized with pressurized air. It's helped to shoot against the form, which gives a better finish because it. Yeah, there are less air holes. If you have these uneven lumps, then you really feel them when you're skating. So it's nice to have this even radius or even transitions. You have one attempt, you know, or you have to take the whole thing out. And if you don't get it right, that's it, you said it. And you just have to pay attention to it all day long. In the winters, you can have really long days where this concrete just takes all day, you know, until sometimes we have days until we're working, until 2 in the morning, and it's still not the final finish. But then you have the opposite in the summer, where you're really just fighting. It doesn't matter what mix you have. It's. Some days are just hot, too hot, and the concrete is just going fast, and then you just need to try your best to keep up.

[Sean Allsop]

I'd spent some time myself on building sites when I was younger. I mixed cement, carried bricks. But the people doing this work are specialists because all of them are skaters, too.

[Alex Horton]

Well, it's getting the closest to making your hobby out of your work, because I ain't going to be a Prof.

[Jesper Kuipers]

Skater, but this is the closest I'll get.

[Alex Horton]

And after you're done with Work, let's

[Jesper Kuipers]

say this park is done immediately.

[Grainger Advertiser]

Go skate it.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

You skate your own work.

[Alex Horton]

And I think that's the best thing about it. So once the cement is set, then we apply a hardener over it. And then we just make sure that everything is clean and as possible. And then after that, yeah, for to finish the park, we just have some painting to do. And then in the end, yeah, it's just painting, cleaning, making sure everything's looking good.

[Sean Allsop]

A few weeks later, and the contrast couldn't be greater.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

At the moment we had off on the Rhine, we had read reopening of the new skate park.

[Sean Allsop]

Aufer Unrein is a small city about 40 kilometers south of Amsterdam. It's a hot afternoon and I'm in what was once a tired, crumbling skatepark with Jeroen. This skatepark is a long, low ribbon of smooth concrete stretching the length of a city block. Rails, ledges, numerous ramps and a bowl all connected in one continuous line. There are hundreds of people here. Music, kids on scooters, teenagers on BMXs, skateboarders of every level, testing every corner. Nine yards have just opened it. And after many years of production, this is what the end of the design process looks like. The grand opening.

[Jeroen van Eckerbond]

This skatepark is pretty, I think, just unique how simple it is. Long, linear, a lot of obstacles, like a lot of rails, ledges. It's ongoing, you know, and you have the mini ramp, you have the ball. So I think this is the longest skate park we have now in the Netherlands. We worked along on this process for designing it and constructing it. So it's cool. Always when a skate park, you can just open it and share with the community, man, that's, I think, the best thing to do.

[Sean Allsop]

Every new skate park needs a whole community that is willing to fight for it. And that includes the people who have access to the money for designing and building.

[Gretzan Schoutanes]

I'm Gretzan Schoutanes. I'm the elder man of the city of Alfaandereijn. And you see today the opening of Kenzie Skatepark, the greatest in Holland and the best for Alfa. And we discussed in the town hall a lot about this. But now it's the big day for everyone on the street, everyone in Aufen Rijn, everyone in the areas around us to come here and to start the season of skating in the brand new park.

[Sean Allsop]

How long has this taken?

[Gretzan Schoutanes]

They called me in 2022 with the message, gatian, we have got a problem. Not Houston, but Gatian, we have got a problem. You have to fix it. And well, in 2023, we start a discussion about what should we do with the park, how will we fix it? And then you got a discussion over public money. And now today, we're here for the grand opening, and there's a proud alderman here.

[Sean Allsop]

And why is this so important for the town?

[Gretzan Schoutanes]

Well, it's important to do the sports, but also to visit each other, to meet each other, and it's a place to be.

[Sean Allsop]

I walked the length of the new park to hear what people think of the new design and quite simply, why they like being here. It was much different.

[Grainger Advertiser]

It was.

[Sean Allsop]

There was like a third ramp, so that was like 4 meters high, I think, almost. And now it's more long so you can skate more lines. The old park was more built on flying, and this one is, I think, more built on grinding. I feel like flying even when I'm doing, like, the tricks like grinding. It feels so smooth. I don't know. How do you feel when you do it? I feel free. You can do everything, but they don't judge. So I feel free. Skateparks aren't fixed circuits. They're spaces designed for expression, shaped by the people who use them and by the people who dare to build them. Half a century on, from a drought in California that sent teenagers into swimming pools, skateparks have become a fabric of cities, fought for by communities funded by governments, built by people who still skate them when the work is done.

[Jesper Kuipers]

It's not a very respected profession in a certain way. It's not a profession where you get extremely rich. Everybody here in this company, and in general, every skateboarder, is so passionate about what they're doing, and they just want to have more and give more. It's not about the money and it's not about the stuff. Status you gain is just about getting more skateable areas. You know you want to skate the world.

[Sean Allsop]

This has been in the studio from the BBC World Service, produced and presented by me, Sean Allsop. This is a T Bone production.

[Grainger Advertiser]

Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog. H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering, and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it.