‘I’ve always been playing with, abstracting, questioning, and evolving what forms can be created to help express skateboarding.’
Skateable Sculptures
Rich Holland
Architectural Designer
Skateboarder
Artist
November 2024
In a press release about UK’s first 3D printed skateable sculpture, it says that ‘Rich Holland is an architectural designer, artist and skateboarder.’ What are you first and foremost?
Pablo Picasso famously said: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” I have been lucky and worked hard enough in life to be able to follow my dreams, not though being born into wealth, or by having a stable and family upbringing, but by doing something I love to do, that is skateboarding. Through skateboarding I found focus, empowerment, and community. And through skateboarding I found making, a creative output and architecture. Where I grew up there was one two spots to skate, a garage foyer that you mostly got kicked out of and then a roadside cafe carpark, that tolerated the only skateboarder in the village. (As long as it was not too busy) This made me hack together DIY ramps and kickers on my driveway, much to the despair of the neighbours. Professionally, there was a time I could have gone for it in skateboarding, I was winning some competitions, getting some images in magazines but in the UK the only path for more was to go to the US which is something I could not afford and did not really want to do. I also wanted to create more design more and work with ideas and creativity as a thing to do in life. So, to answer your question, Artist/Skateboarder/Architectural Designer.
How did you transition into an architectural designer?
It’s kinda of weird, the architectural design aspect of my life has always felt like some sort of side hustle, I love it, but I don’t do it all the time every day, I can’t afford to live off it. But then I also work with interaction design, design research and creative direction in a broader scope. I did a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design in Liverpool, then got sponsored to do a Masters in Communication Design in London. From this I kinda went straight into working for myself, the first real clients were Document Skateboard Magazine with Percy Dean and a contemporary dance troupe called Random Dance, headed up by Wayne McGregor. Me and Marije were living and working together in an old wear-house in East London and at some point, had enough work to share an office with some others. Lowdown Magazine being one of them with Goetz Werner and Daniel Turner. Then there was Nathan Gallagher and Gorm, at some point we all decided to make one company called Bullet Creative and Lowdown moved out.
I was skateboarding a lot London, mostly Stockwell and Southbank, in 2001 I got heavily involved in helping produce a skate/art celebration called ‘The Side Effects of Urethane’ together with Toby Shaull and Marcus Oakley. There were so many people coming through to help build this large installation and who were part of the exhibition that it was sort of mayhem, but we were all so hyped on making a space to celebrate the scene. Nothing had been done on such a scale and from such a context. In some way the Gonz performance in 1998 where Johannes Wohnseifer tapped the Gonz to come up with a bit of skateboard choreography was an inspiration, but we wanted to exhibit works from people connected to the scene and have some bands around that too.From this first show, we all wanted more and the three of us worked really well together and wanted to organise it more, the show gained more traction thanks to Nikki and Louise who were aspiring PR moguls. The next show ‘A surface InBetween’ was more organised, with a bigger exhibition and folks from all over the world, live bands, and a sculpture that you could ride. The installation was a sort of geometric form, playing with more extreme angles in a sort of fishbowl where the viewers could look down and see though slots on the vert walls. With both of these shows we were kinda pissed that they were just temporary, and we were not making anything we could skate beyond the show. This was when we thought to create the cast concrete sculptures that were put into the public realm. By this time Bullet was bubbling along so I reached out to the Southbank in a sort of professional manner to ask if we could place some sculptures where everyone skated. I don’t know why this worked, I don’t know why all the locals never thought to do this, I know why there was so much anger between the local scene and the establishment of the Southbank, but I never understood why no one had tried to reach out to them in a more positive light.
‘In some way the Gonz performance in 1998 where Johannes Wohnseifer tapped the Gonz to come up with a bit of skateboard choreography was an inspiration.’
I am not from London, maybe this helped to look and approach the situation differently and an attitude not biased by hate. So, we first put 4 ‘Moving Units’ at the Southbank in 2004, a few are still there today and one is in Southampton now. I think this was the first-time sculptures were made for skateboarding, in the UK on such a scale, this was purposely called like this as to break the concept of what sculpture could be, when its context is around skateboarding and architecture. Making the forms around every day public furniture and juxtaposing its context and use was a sort of an ironic play on the idea. With this show the three of us kinda focused on the different parts we were into more, Toby was organising the music night, Marcus the exhibition and I was making the concrete forms with some help from Hugo and his crew. This was the last show we did together, and we all felt like it was a good time to stop. The next sculpture was in 2006 at the Kiasma in Helsinki, and with this I got the chance to create a form that was haunting me, the standing wave. ‘Aalto’ paid homage to the early beginnings of skateboarding and was also a reaction to the amazing space which was the entire 5th floor. The exhibition ‘At First We Take Museum’s’ was about outsider art becoming more part of mainstream art, Ed Templeton was exhibiting on the walls along with a load of others and the show was over two floors. This was such an amazing experience and if I could, I would love to do more of this sort of work. In a way this was the start of what is now a 20-year art/architectural side hustle. It’s taken me to some crazy scenarios and places, but at its core, I’ve always been playing with, abstracting, questioning, and evolving what forms can be created to help express skateboarding.
You built this amazing skate landscape at Nike’s European Headquarter in the Netherlands. How did you land the job?
That was a pretty wild project. When I was part of Bullet, we were given the opportunity to pitch to help launch NikeSB, that went on to us creating a lot of the point-of-sale activations and bespoke events across Europe. I kinda kept the link with Nike over the years, dipping in and out of various projects. So, when this project was happening the guy heading up NikeSB gave me a call and brought us on board to think about how we could bring skateboarding to the Headquarters. It was a strange time, we had 13 years in London and then 10 years in Sweden and we had just moved to the families summer house in the Netherlands. It sounds fancy but this is a 7m by 5m, single story shed, but it’s better than nothing and walking distance to the beach! Three months in my workshop got robbed, I smashed my arm in two skateboarding and then a global pandemic hit. Before all this we had just nailed the conceptual approach to the site and held various workshops talking about what could be created, after this it was design time. After my arm break, I was prescribed these heavy painkillers Oxycodone, I took them for a week and they messed me up, I am shocked that this drug is legal. So, it was a lot of hard recovery after that, in a way I got lucky in that the pandemic slowed everything down and by the time my arm could move I could design it. By this time the appointed corporate landscape architects had tried to snowball the project with something very wheel unfriendly. The SB folks stepped up and made it so we had full reign over what should be done, working closely with an engineer/skater Bedir Bekar we made a new iteration of Aalto, made some kidney blobs, a sort of positive form of a kidney bowl and some other bit n pieces that all relate to the rich history of skateboarding and it roots in urban space. After this the design was kinda nailed and it was up to Nine Yards to build it. My arm had not really healed and then they did surgery and cut the nerve, which meant that my arm got a steel plate and 6 screws, but from mid-way down my upper arm, the radial nerve didn’t work. It’s fixed now, this took about a year and half of just trying to use it, move it as if it worked. Totally weird as my brain had to rewire how to control the newly grown nerve, as it grew.
‘Just like skateboarding really, you try a thousand times until at one point it’s bolts.’
You are part of team that came up with UK’s first 3D printed skateable sculpture. What was the feedback from the skate community?
The first 4 objects were initially part of a project working together with skate Southampton, they were inspired by the idea of approaching our city as a playground and exploring how architectural forms and sculptures can be deployed to encourage community engagement, promote physical literacy, develop strong connections with culture and improve mental health. As Skate Southampton put it: “As a community we collaboratively came up with themes and ideas we wanted to bring to life in these sculptural forms. These ideas were generated as part of online consultation and our #CLUBHOUSE workshop. Working with Rich Holland and Bedir Bekar initially created forms that would be made from Corten steel, however due to a need to create a more modular and sustainable solution we have been able to bring these ideas to life in not only the physical realm from 3D printed concrete but also in the Metaverse. By exploring how physical forms can be placed in different locations within (any) city we believe we can help to stimulate new conversations and approaches to how we interact with each other and our urban environments.” Treat these forms as mini stages, benches, play pieces… whatever you want them to be is what they are, that’s what makes them. The forms we have developed (and others) will also become the first skateboarding inspired sculptures to be available as NTF’s later this year. Sale of the NFT’s will help to make more projects a “reality”. The physical versions of these forms are being 3D printed in concrete and will be on the streets of Southampton at some point in 2024. The first 4 objects to follow are the world’s first commercially available 3D printed skateboard focused furniture and for some time a percentage of the sales from “The Skate Southampton Collection” will be given to them to help fund future community activities. Skate Southampton was willing to let us try out 3D printing some concrete, I had seen some stairs printed by 3Dweber here in the Netherlands, so contacted them as asked if we could try out a small version. So far, it’s been ok, but the way we all see it is that this is the first time it’s been tried, so it’s all work in progress. Whenever you innovate, things often don’t work, break, turn out differently to what you thought might happen, so I expect some things will break, and I know there will be a learning curve until we get it just right. Just like skateboarding really, you try a thousand times until at one point it’s bolts.
‘To skateboarders we see the things that are skateable, but even this is often a personal choice, as some see lines where others not.’
I can imagine that there are some skaters that claim all sculptures are skateable. Skaters pride themselves as this super creative force that love to be challenged by what infrastructure/obstacles is available. Do you therefore think calling something ‘skateable’ takes the fun and creativity out of it? Maybe there is also the sentiment where you can officially skate it versus you should not but you do it anyway?
In relation to the point about calling a sculpture skateable, yes totally agree on that. To skateboarders, it’s the same obviousness of calling a skatepark a skatepark, and I don’t really like the term. But I think it’s a question of wider context, beyond the skateboard scene, calling the objects sculptures brings into questions of what sculpture/art is, and why is it and what is it for. To skateboarders we see the things that are skateable, but even this is often a personal choice, as some see lines were others not. Usually folks see a bench as a place to sit, and yet skateboarders see it as a place to play, learn, progress and fail, if a bench is a sculpture is it still a bench, what does it mean to sit? In some previous projects we have dropped objects in public places without permission and these things have taken on a life of their own, sometimes too much amusement and challenging the status quo. Often the objects bring up questions around ownership and legality. But more importantly, often the objects empower the local scenes, it gives them something that is for them in the public realm, where usually these spaces question their right to be there.
Were there some technical 3D printing limitations on what you wanted to do?
In short, yeah a little bit. But then we thought to start small and test what possible, so start simply and expand upon what can be done and what we know works. For another project I wanted to print over foam forms in order to create more organic shapes, but it’s a less sustainable process and the outcomes still need a lot of work to make it skateable. As we make more, we will learn more about what works and what does not work, we have noticed that the width has a lot to do with the strength of the objects, and it’s a balance between strength and weight.
If you could interview any person in the world, who would it be and why?
There have been a lot of great thinkers and makers throughout the time humans have had the ability to question and shape their own existence, so this is a hard one. Im going with Isamu Noguchi, Hannah Arendt, Leonardo da Vinci.
‘I kinda want to try and print a mini ramp, it’s totally possible’
