Riverside Museum
The Riverside Museum ‘Transport’ skate spot, a recently completed set of five bespoke granite skate features, is now open for business – a sunset-soaked example of the future direction for purpose built skate spots in Glasgow.
Delivered in partnership with Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Life to coincide with the opening of the new Govan-Partick Bridge, ‘Transport’ is exemplary of the partnership working currently being developed by Glasgow Urban Sports to support the delivery of meaningful skate spots across Glasgow, a testament to the resourcefulness of the skateboard community and its DIY ethos.
The success and popularity of the original 2017 development has now grown into a bonafide high-end urban realm skate spot, realised entirely in granite, a significant addition to the local skateboard and BMX landscape. ‘Transport’ will become one of the ‘go to’ spots in Scotland and the UK.
The new ‘Transport’ skate spot at Riverside Museum was delivered by Glasgow Urban Sports in partnership with the Riverside Museum, Glasgow Life and Glasgow City Council. Designed by the Glasgow Urban Sports team: Toby Paterson, John Bailey and Raydale Dower with a focused working group of skateboarders including Leah Moodie, Charlie Myatt, Haden Beck and Danny Aubrey.
Riverside Launch Jam
The Riverside Museum ‘Transport’ skate spot will be officially launched between 2-5pm, Saturday 5th October, with a skate jam organised and hosted by the Riverside Museum and delivered in partnership with Glasgow Urban Sports and The Loading Bay.
For those in the know the curb and manual blocks have been available to skate since the Govan–Partick Bridge opened on the 7th of September, with the banked features being completed and fully opened for use on 20th October. Formally marking the occasion and celebrating with the skate jam, this hotly anticipated and free to skate new spot is now completed and open for business!
"I used to have to travel abroad to get this excited about skateboarding"
Riverside Museum ‘Transport’ : History, 2017–present
The original ’Transport’ skate spot was realised in 2017. It grew out of a conversation between the Riverside Museum’s Manager Stewart Thompson and Jamie Blair from Clan Skates, Scotland’s longest standing skateboarder owned skate shop based in nearby Partick.
The Riverside Museum had an issue with skateboarders on their doorstep, but as a museum of transport was own not to exclude the urban sports community. Indeed, both Jamie Blair and Colin Kennedy, one of Scotland’s first professional skateboarders in the 1990s and now European Marketing Manager at Nike SB, are featured amongst the museum’s exhibits. Specifically, the Riverside were looking for a solution to skateboarders using the ledges at their front door during opening times. The answer was to create a dedicated set of skate features that refocussed skate activity to the western side of the museum landscape.
Jamie approached Toby Paterson and Raydale Dower (both artists and skateboarders) from Glasgow Urban Sports and Iain Young, the skatepark designer and builder behind Concreate Skateparks. An initial design concept was drawn up by Toby and Raydale which proposed a layout augmenting the existing landscape with a series of skateable sculptural interventions. These were built by incorporating reclaimed granite paving from the existing scheme alongside small instances of concrete.
Concreate Skateparks delivered the build at cost, realising a total of eight relatively modest but meaningful sculptural interventions that transformed the western edge of the museum into a skate spot. This intervention included the now legendary bank to curb and the cantilevered quarterpipe – The ‘Transport’ skate spot was born. A unique feature of this ‘sleight of hand’ approach is that the landscape reads as rideable to skaters and BMX’ers while passing as everyday pedestrian space to museum visitors. It became a shared public space with multiple uses.
In essence this was a skateboard community-led DIY project realised on shoestring budget, with total spend of around £14K. Its success owed thanks in no small part to the Concreate Skateparks team for going above and beyond to make it happen- Thank you Youngo!
Critically, as well as the input from the skateboard community, it was the progressive vision and strategic support of the Riverside Museum that enabled a smooth delivery and build process for the project- see Skateboard Scotland link for Toby Paterson in conversation with Rick Curran: skateboardscotland
Riverside Museum ‘Transport’ 2017- 2024 Delivery & Partnerships:
Glasgow Urban Sports would like to thank: Stewart Thompson / Riverside Museum, Neil Menzies / GCC, Jason Bell / Glasgow Life Infrastructure, Farrans Construction, Jamie Blair / Clan Skates, Iain Young / Concreate Skateparks, John Bailey / The Loading Bay, Charlie Myatt, Haden Beck, Danny Aubrey and Leah Moodie for their invaluable design input and support.