The impacts of hostile designs on skateboarding as a form of active transportation and recreation: comparing perspectives from public university spaces in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract

Skateboarding is a popular form of active transportation and recreation that reinterprets the use of public obstacles like stairs, rails, and planters for play. Through active leisure, skateboarding provides physiological, social, and emotional benefits. However, cities regulate and design out the activity through legal and architectural interventions, citing injury liability, property damage, and nuisance as justifications. In this paper, we focus on the impacts of hostile architecture and urban design in restricting skateboarding, and thus reducing opportunities to engage in cardiovascular exercise. While hostile designs target populations like unhoused people from using public space, there is little evidence of their effects on skateboarding in universities. Therefore, this paper comparatively analyses the extent of hostile designs and their impacts on skateboarding as a novel form of physical activity in three public universities in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Comparing photographs and autoethnographic accounts, we argue campuses disproportionately target skateboarding for exclusion. We find that exclusion is legitimized through temporary events and safety and damage concerns. Given the health benefits of skateboarding, we recommend skate-friendly interventions that address these concerns, create shared campus space, and reimagine universities as inclusive places for all modes of active transportation and recreation.