So you think your job has its weird
moments?
Try telling people that you design skateboard
parks.
Stan Byers, whose work includes design
of the new Rattlesnake Mountain Skatepark
at Reno's Mira Loma Park, spent six years
juggling the desires of hand-wringing
lawyers, hot-dogging skateboarders and
hard-driving construction workers.
His handiwork, a 40,000-square-foot
skatepark that's the biggest on the West
Coast, opened last month.
But exactly how does one go about the
business of designing a skatepark?
Well, the 41-year-old Byers explained a
few days ago, you start with a background as
a skateboarder yourself.During the late
1970s, he managed a skatepark in the Reno
area.When he saw seven years ago that the
city planned a facility for skateboarders at
Mira Loma Park, he decided to offer
his advice.
"I had some experience and had seen
what was possible," Byers said.
One thing led to another, and he became
the primary designer for the facility. After he
worked five years as a volunteer, the city suggested
that he take a fee a step that
moved Byers into the ranks of professional
skatepark designers.
Like a golf course designer, Byers tried to
use the site's topography to best advantage.
He knew he wanted to combine some features
from traditional skateparks with unique
elements that would make the Mira Loma
facility noteworthy.
He started with a half dozen meetings
with local skateboarders to learn what they
wanted from the park.
From their thoughts, Byers began
designing a facility that's actually two parks
in one. The south side of the facility replicates
the features skateboarders search out
along city streets rails and ramps, for
instance. The north side with its deep bowls
is a tribute to the early days of skateboarding
when boarders sought out empty swimming
pools to sharpen their skills.
But getting that design onto the site
proved challenging.
In his day job, Byers is creative director
for the Rose-Glenn Group, an advertising
agency in Reno. He brings the same technique
to his skatepark projects (along with
Mira Loma, he's designed three others in
the region) that he uses for advertising
design a pencil and paper for a quick
sketch. The details are filled out later, often
through computerized illustration programs.
Byers said he completely redesigned the park
seven times. Each design required hundreds
of drawings and weeks of work to
reflect rounds of changes. A high water
table, for instance, demanded that the deep
bowls be relocated and built on raised concrete
platforms.
"You have to have some challenges.
Otherwise, why build it?" said Byers.
The construction crews who poured concrete
to build the facility also faced challenges
with the park's many sweeping curves,
half pipes and curved platforms. Even with
the hundreds of control points provided by
the design drawings, modifications sometimes
were made on the fly.
That, Byers said, taught him the value of
maintaining good relations on the job site.
"I always tried to be the guy who had
doughnuts or a 12-pack of pop on a hot
day," he said. "If I had a change, I wanted
them to welcome me."
Along with his design fee, Byers was
rewarded for his work with the privilege of
becoming one of the first skateboarders to
swoop through the park's curves the day it
opened.
He's rewarded, too, by watching the
crowds of skateboarders who flock to the
park daily.
One of them, Shawn Fosnight, drove up
from his Sacramento home the other day
after he'd heard glowing reports about the
big new park. His judgment? "It's pretty fun.
It's definitely a lot better than most."
