Within the atrium of Paris’ Le Bon Marché department store, shoppers pause to gaze at a mirrored cube punctured by a glowing full-pipe skate ramp. The installation is a partnership between Chicago architecture firm MANA and skateboarder Scott Oster, created as the centerpiece of the Los Angeles Rive Gauche exhibition.

Part sculpture, part stage, the modern skate ramp is a draw even when it’s not hosting live performances.

“Le Cube acted as a thought-provoking intersection between sport and sculptural art,” says MANA. “When a performance was occurring inside, the atmosphere was dynamic and stimulating. When it was not being activated, Le Cube sat quietly, luminously reflecting the architecture of its surroundings—warm lights, decorative iron handrails, and the famous crossing escalators of Le Bon Marché.”

The reflections were designed to create an illusion that the full-pipe was “a cylindrical void suspended within the open interior courtyard of the store,” and the mirrored surfaces amplify the displays that surround the cube on multiple levels.

The exhibition brings a little slice of L.A. to one of the world’s most refined cities, with Le Cube specifically referencing the street culture that gives Los Angeles much of its personality.

MANA hid a small access door in the base, eliminating the need for visually disruptive ladders, while safety wires protect the ramp openings almost invisibly. The reflective panels are made of lightweight aluminum to withstand vibration from skating.

Scott Oster says he wanted the piece to be a skateable work of art.

“My inspiration for the Adaptation cube was the photos I saw as a kid in the 70’s skateboard magazines of these massive cement full pipes in the desert,” he tells Le Bon Marché magazine. “My original idea was to find one of these pipes and set it on top of a pedestal, but after some research that was not a viable possibility. That’s when I came up with the idea of building one, and instead of building a full pipe sitting on a pedestal, make a cube with the full pipe inside it. I love the simplicity and form of a circle and a square.”

Get a little too artsy with skate obstacles and you might end up with objects that just aren’t all that fun or functional for their intended purpose. But when Rotterdam design studio Opperclaes collaborated with furniture maker Jeroen van Sluis to bring its signature typographic art into three dimensions, the result spelled success for skaters hitting the city’s streets for Rotterdam Street Culture Weekend and the PowWow Rotterdam street art event.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

“Character Type” is a series of 3D typographic installations placed in various parts of Rotterdam last fall, bringing interactive sculptures to previously empty public spaces. The enormous wooden letters seem to rise out of the pavement at odd angles, offering curves and ledges that ultimately spell out the words “ENDLESS,” “STAMINA” and “WAYS.” A fourth installation spelling out “LINES” appeared indoors for the three-day “Creating Lines” skateboarding event, which included an exhibition, full-length skate video and panel discussions.

The whole thing was captured on film by Sami El Hassani, if you want to see how the letter-shaped skate objects performed.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Opperclaes Rotterdam (@opperclaes)

Whenever oversized letters appear in the city of Rotterdam, you can probably bet that Opperclaes is involved. In addition to the “Character Type” project, they’ve produced street furniture, murals and a fun pedestrian crosswalk on the Westblaak.

Check out 15 typographic art projects and a collection of eminently skateable architecture.

A 100-year-old church in Spain is hosting pilgrimages of a new sort now that its interior is lined with skate ramps instead of pews, its soaring cathedral ceilings covered in vibrant murals. This stunning mashup of art and sport is known as Kaos Temple, a collaboration between La Iglesia Skate, Red Bull and street artist Okuda San Miguel. Located in the city of Ilanera, this stunning converted space has instantly earned its place among the most creative skate parks in the world.

Okuda transformed the walls and vaulted ceilings with rainbow-hued geometric paintings, while the skate collective built customized ramps running the width of the interior. The columns, ribs and other architectural elements of the space remain as they were before the project began, crumbling in some areas, their lack of polish contrasting with the bright new paint.

Spectators and fellow skaters convene on comfortable couches in the living-room-like lounge that formerly functioned as the pulpit.  The artist describes the project as being part of a ‘cultural upheaval’ that will “bring a new era to the spaces for art,” i.e. out of galleries and into common public spaces that everyone can enjoy. Okuda also produced a series of customized skateboards as rewards for the donors who helped crowd fund the project.

Skateboarding isn’t classified as a real sport in the Netherlands, but one duo decided to take the resulting lack of decent official skate parks into their own hands with a guerrilla solution. Now, legally or not, virtually any public space can become a skate park thanks to a series of modular DIY components by Martijn Hartwig and Dario Goldbach.

The JIRAJIRA project is the duo’s final work as graphic design graduates at Willem de Kooning Academy, and consists of nine hand-painted ramps, quarter pipes and benches that can be loaded onto rolling platforms and transported to any location within Rotterdam. Dutch artists Leon Karen and Vincent Blok were commissioned to decorate each element, turning the collective park into a sort of portable gallery.

Keeping the whole setup mobile is ideal, since the cops are likely to come along and tell you to get lost. The modular parts are designed to work in conjunction with objects typically found in parks and city squares, like trash cans and benches. Since skaters are going to make use of any surfaces they can find anyway, possibly including some of the city’s temptingly curvy war monuments, it’s a decent compromise with the authorities.

Rotterdam’s only skate park, a metallic monstrosity known as the Westblaak, closed down after being deemed unsafe. In a profile on the city’s scene, skateboarding magazine Kingpin says that since nearly the entire city was destroyed during World War II, most of the streets are smooth and there’s plenty of eminently skateable new construction. “The only downside would be that The Netherlands is pretty much flat, so not too many stairs and or rails,” they note, so clearly the JIRAJIRA project is filling an underserved niche.

It’s hard to imagine a more idyllic place to practice skate tricks than a sculptural wooden ramp floating on the crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe. In some of the photos, it almost doesn’t look real, the skaters captured in mid-air seeming jarringly out of place agains the surface of the water.

Skateboarding pro Bob Burnquist got the opportunity to build the ramp in 2013 when Visit California asked him to think big, coming up with an idea that might seem a little nuts at first but was actually achievable. Working with Miami art director Jerry Blohm, Burnquist created a wooden structure on a floating base, featuring a half pipe, a quarter pipe and a 45-degree ramp.

The fact that it sits entirely upon the surface of the water is part of what makes it seem so unreal. It’s built on a steel frame with weighted riggers that keep it from moving around too much in the water. It took 300 man hours and 1,250 screws to finish the 7,300-pound structure.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t there a danger of skating right off the edge?” Yes, there definitely is, even for professionals – and that’s why Bob had a wet-suited snorkeler waiting to retrieve his skateboard anytime it went into the water during this shoot.