PT.2 Interview - Rich Holland Talking Design, Skateparks and Innovation

Rich Holland is an interactive/architecture designer his work surrounding skateboarding can be seen and skated across the world. Having created skateable spaces for over 20 years Rich’s expertise has been utilised again with Skate Southampton and The John Hansard Gallery. 

As someone who is constantly rethinking and innovating the idea of sculpture, Rich's latest builds with Skate Southampton have been constructed with 3D printed recyclable concrete. We caught up with him from his home in the Netherlands to gather a bit more information about his personal work journey and the Skate Southampton project.

Interview by Fraser.

Before we start talking about spaces, what’s your thoughts on skateparks and how they’ve changed over time?

Skateparks are abstract spaces which are built off the back of what skateparks are like, where those forms come from have some relation to the street but not really. They are already abstract and made too perfectly so you have this weird, which is interesting in skating, backlash towards the Olympics skateboarding, SLS, skateparks and street skateboarding. If you look at it now skateboarders are doing fucked up shit on crazy architecture. The most complex, weirdest and honest architecture out there is getting skated on and those pieces in themselves would never be built in a skatepark. They would never be built in an Olympic facility, because they are no way near perfect enough. So you've got this utopian vision of what skateboarding should skate, which is being injected into the skateparks, which almost has no relevance to a real street. And yet, 90% of skateboarding happens on the real street. So 'street skateboarding' in skateparks for me almost doesn't make sense.

With the Nike EHQ Skate Landscape, I said "Okay every form and space has to have a relevance to skateboard history and a relevance to skateboarding architecture or architecture in which people skate." So, instead of us saying let's make a space and have a quarter here, a hip or a box here to hit. We began to work with thinking about the forms and the idea of flow letting them be relevant to skateboarding and position them in a vibrant landscape, which is a completely different way to think about skateboarding and the landscape, it's a more hybrid inclusive area. Then when we had the concept down it went into the tender which is when when we got 'Nine Yards' in who was the contractor and again this isn’t the usual scenario. The way they usually work is that the contractors put forward a design and build it as well.

That seems to be the case especially in the UK, but that's more down to how local councils work.

Not all the time but it happens a lot. I wish there was more utilisation of greenery in parks, the landscape architects were having issues of how and where we put specific trees into the space. It's hard to argue with them because they have much more experience in that field but I see it happen all over the world where trees and plants get integrated into landscape architecture in a better way. The problem in the end was that they didn’t quite understand and weren’t willing to help. 

Maybe they were all about the trees rather than skateboarding.

For sure, it's just difficult being a small fish in a big pond going up against a big landscape architect, especially since I'm not a trained architect. I’ve been doing a lot of it for a long time. 

With no formal training in this world of architecture and design, how have you managed to do so much especially with skateable spaces?

It was all down to the first [SIDE EFFECTS OF URETHANES - 2000]. That was more of a celebration of all the artistry and creativity within skateboarding in the skate scene. With it being in London obviously we had a lot of people involved (as well as from outside of London) in it. We wanted to make a sculptural space which you could skate and in a way that was inspired by the Gonz’s installation in Berlin, which was the only other time it had happened. In a way though Gonz was about the performance moving within the space whereas ours was focusing on the space itself.

When we started Toby and Marcus and in a way we sort of transpired to be people leading the project. There was also Nicky and Louise who worked in PR with us. We didn’t have a specific design in mind, we just did what skateboarders do and reacted to the environment given to us, thinking back to those earlier incarnations we didn’t plan out the space at all beforehand it was on-the-fly! By the second show [ we started to truly play with geometry given to us within the space, there we also learned to focus the objects by making the pyramid blue in the white space. The second space [A SURFACE IN BETWEEN - 2001] was amazing. You could stand on a terrace above and look down from above and by the end of the second show we had started to get pissed off. 

We’d have to dismantle and destroy all this stuff every time which could be used for skateboarding somewhere else, it led to the question ‘why can't we make something in the public realm?’. Why don’t we make average objects and put them in the street, it becomes ‘This is not a pipe.’ thing. It's sort of like the urinal in an art gallery idea. We decided on making a bench and putting it in an art gallery. It flipped the idea of what a skateable sculpture is on its head and what a bench is used for. I remember skateboarders having to tell people not to sit on the benches because they were built for skateboarding. The reaction of ‘What? But, it's a bench.’ has stuck with me. The conversation gets to be reversed than the usual you can’t skate here this is our bench. That bench ended up becoming the first moving unit for Southbank. 

From the moving units show it all took on a lifes of its own. I really enjoyed the process of the objects, forms and questioning skateboarding so the next thing was [INTERSTICES - EXPOSKATE – 2006]. This was with The Beautiful Losers, it was a big space and the first time we curated a hybrid area. It was designed to have a stage for a DJ, it had an open stage for a theatre area and then at other times it was for skateboarding an important part of it was the disability access that ran through the whole gallery. 

[ALTO - AT FIRST WE TAKE MUSEUMS - 2005] That was mad, it was almost as if ‘What, we can build this?’ It was a massive sculpture taking up the entire 5th floor of the museum of contemporary art. We couldn’t believe it, to the point we were asking ‘...and you're going to pay for it?!’ I went over and put together a scale sketch model of the piece in the space everyone involved was really stoked about. Being a professional artist would be the life, they put us up in a super nice flat for a month and we got paid. They took us out for dinner constantly and looked after us. That was definitely the best aid but that's probably because it's Finland, they've got a lot of resources to spend on art and public things. 

There’s a long list actually [laughs], now I'm making longer-lasting sculptures that are available to everyone.

I was going to jump into the difference between working within the UK and Europe but they seem pretty obvious. 

Yeah, I mean they think differently. You might have to wait for a few generations before we see even bigger changes to the landscape. Dare I say Brexit?  I guess it’s also that most of the projects that I've done in mainland Europe have been funded by the government, or government funding institutions. The skate Southampton one is this too, via the gallery. 

Let's talk about Southampton instead [laughs]? 

Yeah let's go back to Skate Southampton. Meeting Steve (Bega) was amazing and originally Bedir (Bekar) wanted to make Cor-ten steel objects. Bedir did some great engineering and modelling with the steel but they are just too expensive to produce.

The steel is sustainable because you can recycle it back to Cor-ten steel again. It lasts for a very long time that's why it always goes that rust colour then once its that colour it stays that way for years. I used Cor-ten steel for a project in Malmo, which will probably out last mean me [laughs], bearing in my mind they’ll be there for 30 to 40 years. I kind of love the fact that I designed these objects which have gone on tour from Berlin, Paris, Malmo then Bordeaux as part of a sculpture swap between the cities. They take on a life of their own and they are just out there doing whatever. I’ve occasionally gone out and seen them deliberately. Recently I went to take a look at the 3D prints workshop and we took a detour to Malmo and I just saw one out on the street accidentally. It was ,’Oh wow! Look, one of the objects is here.’ I hadn’t seen it in years, it was good to see how it's been skated and survived. 

The 3D printed idea for skateboarding came off a design I'd seen by 3D weber. They printed these stairs and I thought you could probably do a 3D printed skate object. I did some test prints at home and spoke to Steve about the possibility of doing them for the Southampton project because, "Hey, why not it hasn’t been done before. Let’s try it." That's what is great working with Steve, he is willing to experiment because again a lot of skateboarders wouldn’t want to try something new or untested. We had the budget limitation and it all fitted within it, we were able to make four objects and have them shipped over to Southampton. They’ve worked alright and from doing the first ones we know where to improve the design and where to tweak and build better supports. 

Steve mentioned the lifting of the sculptures can really affect the longevity of the bench. 

The lifting can be problematic but we’re learning! They don’t have to be on the street either; they could probably go into skateparks. With the prints you’ll have to do a few different applications afterwards, you’ll need to put metal edges on and skim the top or you print them and use them as a base for stone. In skateparks the usage is much more intense so you’d have the metal whereas hybrid zones, public space, I think you can get away without edges and paint them instead which works well. It's still early days and it's the more sustainable route with an object. There’s little to no waste, there’s less concrete, no steel and it’s really easy to recycle at the end.

Has sustainability and recyclability always been at the forefront of your mind when developing skateable architecture and sculptures?

I think it's developed over time from being part of and seeing all the waste from earlier projects I've done with big brands. I’ve always wanted my work to give back to the community through skating, the worst for it all was the Omar Salazar launch. We built a massive spaceship interior where everyone could sit in. Omar would come off this bus and into the ship where we’d have a 90 minute presentation with some skateable parts and it cost 40,000 euros. Then it was just binned… the whole time I was thinking we could have spent half the money and done something slightly different. We could have bought and made a product that could still be around for people to skate. 

How have you kept on top of the sheer amount of work?

The answer is I didn't. I moved to Sweden and went into the wilderness for 10 years. I've always loved the mountains, hiking, climbing and tracking especially with my partner. Whilst I was still working on brand activations I was trying to keep busy by building a Land Rover. London was too hectic and the agency stuff was going on. I was dealing with way too much work and disconnected from skateboarding. We bought this house/farm with two friends, renovated it into a passive house and made a design research centre based on sustainable innovation. We wanted to make a place for ethical awareness, it comes from what it's to design stuff beyond just ‘activation’. It's brilliant doing cool stuff right? But at the same time you’ve got to remember its fucking with the environment. Being in an agency where we're doing marketing is rad but sometimes you're just making people buy more shit. 

Do you find that thought process difficult when developing anything for a brand?

Yeah of course I do, it can feels like the knife edge of fucking the planet but also doing something positive for it. 

You have to do it, you've got to have an awareness for it and create it too. If you’re not then you're just doing it for nothing and throwing shit out there. Marketers can keep convincing people to buy but we can't sustain the planet unless we tell the stories correctly. 

What does education look like when we talk about sustainability whilst building something for skateboarding?

The word ‘sustainable’ is difficult to comprehend. It comes down to sustainability in what context? I’ve had quite a few heated conversations with skatepark builders because they don’t see it yet as ‘more sustainable’. How can you claim it? There’s no wooden moulds, a third of the material, zero waste. You come up against ‘You have to bring it here’. You may be using a local concrete firm which has less mileage but printing and delivering from one location is still more sustainable than all the other processes doing it on site at the moment.

I think there comes a point where it's not sustainable, for example if it's moved across mass distances for travel but I think within mainland Europe and the UK, it is fine because the Netherlands is quite central.  

It's a real conundrum, I don't have an answer for what's right or wrong. I just know you, as the designer, have to have the awareness of it to then help. So the next time you think about making a plastic based forever chemicals bench maybe consider that wood is fine. It might get fucked up but at least it will go back into the earth and be in us at some point. 

The plastics are quite literally inside us. There’s probably a SkateLite Park in the water being consumed somewhere.

Yeah [laughs] that's a weird thing to think about, but maybe it's one of those plastic benches Etnies made instead. They were one of those forever chemical plastics. 

Does a lack of budget ever affect the creative output for your projects?

Not necessarily, because there comes a point where you need at least some money. It can come down to the will of the people involved. None of the work I've done with Skate Southampton is paid. The gallery paid me as a landscape designer but all of us went in thinking this isn’t an opportunity to make money. So with that said when it comes to production you launch into materials and peoples time. We’re giving it up for free but we need materials to do the stuff. It's quite hard for us not to be in the same location. I've got a workshop here where I could make wooden objects (which wouldn't have lasted or been as innovative) . We also wanted to try something new. 

Within skateboarding as a whole I'm surprised there isn’t more innovation. It's something that you are always failing at and learning from so whenever you are innovating and trying new things you have to have the same mindset. I think with the 3D printed objects, a few of them have failed but those failures have been successes in teaching us what we need to do next. Again, I can't thank Steve enough for letting us try something that might fail.  

Do you think Steve's work with Environmental Design lends well to what you were both trying to achieve?

Oh yeah, his re-wilding stuff is brilliant. We worked together on that stuff before, last year I worked on a Masters course for design in Amsterdam and I helped put together something with Steve! It was all working towards a post-human experience re-wilding a bridge. 

On that note I’m also working on with the London Air Ambulance and innovating emergency medicine so the project is an interface between on-site paramedics and the trauma bays and its a live data flow between this monitor that Air Ambulance crews hook up to a patient so the trauma bays have the stats/history/knowledge before the patient gets there. It's an algorithm based system that predicts patient outcomes. It's a million miles away from the skateboarding stuff but it's so meaningful. 

Is it a deliberate or personal choice when taking on non-skateboarding projects as opposed to a skateable space?

Yes, skateboarding has always been deeply personal for me. It gave me a focus and community away from traumatic experiences I was dealing with on a daily basis. It gave me a way out. It was true escapism and it still is. What's interesting is that it was an escape from my situation so now as an adult I'm in a more stable situation and it's less of an escape because I almost have actually escaped.

I think you have inadvertently created escape routes for others too.

I hope so, I hope it helps people. If it can help people out of what I was born into and experienced then yes its deeply a good thing.

I do find it hard working in skateboarding sometimes because it was my escape, so it blurred the line between work and escapism and being in that industry kind of killed it for me as well. I went skating to escape work but the work would follow me. It's complicated [laughs] but it's okay, life is complicated.   

For more information on Rich Holland's work check out his websiter here

Our Skate Southampton interview with Steve Bega here