Most urban designs are at best useful for skaters as an afterthought, or more typically: specifically created to foil skaters, but not this set of signs.

The Drive Skate Shop in Vancouver created two of these, the first of which mimics a typical and ubiquitous “sandwich board” style sign, which normally consists of two planes angling out toward the bottom for stability.

By extending those surfaces onto the ground and adding a slight curve, a skateable sign is created — ride it at your own risk, however (it’s steep!).  Metal supports provide stability, too.

The second variant is crafted from curved plywood and slopes up a wall, imitating a typical pasted posters toward the top, but turning into an angled ramp near the ground, effectively turning the whole wall into a more skate-friendly surface.

As marketing strategies go, this one has it all: simple and clever, cheap but functional and to-the-point, letting passing skaters take a stab at riding the signage then maybe stopping for some supplies when they tank their landing.

What would architecture look like if it had no beginning or end, no ground floor as starting point nor rooftop terminus? Artist Vasco Mourao explores exactly that question in his series Ouroboros, so named after the mythical dragon/serpent forever eating its own tail.

The Barcelona-based artist (an architect by training) illustrates his impossible-sounding seems on curved and angular cuts of plywood shaped into loops.

His work indirectly addresses a key transition point in the history of architecture as well — a time when concrete, steel and glass were first combined to make taller structure possible but before the Modernists rendered these buildings sleek and simple.

Like early skyscrapers (featuring stretched Gothic decor and wood-inspired details), his designs extrapolate conventional materials and decorative approaches skyward. Their aesthetic is also reminiscent of places like Kowloon Walled City, where densification drove particularly strange connections between different structures.

Meanwhile, Mourao also draws other cityscapes on different surfaces as well, from large-scale surrealistic murals to the bottoms of skateboards, often reprising similar themes of infinity-evoking architecture.

A permanent installation opening as part of the Liverpool Biennial in England, this glowing skate park will be the first of its kind in the UK, enabling skaters of all skill levels to give it a shot by day or night.

Designed by Korean artist Koo Jeong A (photos by Thierry Bal & Gareth Jones), the minimalist structure borrows elements from skateboarding and BMXing traditions. Previous work by A includes another glow-in-the-dark park in France.

The park was developed in conjunction with Wheelscape Skateparks, a company that uses sprayed concrete to sculpt complex shapes that go beyond basic geometries of cast-in-place approaches.

“I devised extremely steep, sharp angles, which would be a challenge to the most courageous and skilled skaters,” says the artist. “It was as if they would be the great mountaineers that the rest of us would admire. And with its glow-in-the-dark surface, I hoped the Wheels Park would offer an experience of contemplation.”

Pro skaters pull tricks on (and beyond) the pavement on this real-life hoverboard – at a distance, one might mistake their rides for normal skateboards, except for the steam from liquid nitrogen cooling superconductors to negative 320 degrees … oh, and that gap of air between the board and the ground below. Completing the futuristic scene, hovering drone cameras can be seen floating into and out of view, capturing wide-angle views and close-up shots of the gravity-defying skateboarders in action.

Developed by Lexus, getting the hang of this electromagnetic contraption is still not trivial, even for professionals, as many falls and bails illustrate in the video above. Considering the challenge of relearning a fundamentally difference set of balancing variables, though, these skaters do quite well for themselves, even managing a few rail slides and to coast across a body of water.

The device does, however, come with a significant catch: like other similar inventions, it relies on a metallic subsurface to function – the depiction of this scene as taking place a typical skateboard is alas somewhat misleading.

Out in the real world, there are limited environments where one might actually make this work. That being said, infrastructure changes, and should this take off as a recreational sport, new parks could be designed around these devices as well. At the very least, this one is a few steps past the Hendo in terms of technological compactness, robustness, stability and, of course, an outdoor demo to get people excited.

Designed to provide 1,000 square meters of recreational space across four floors, this multistory structure bends and curves to accommodate bowls and ramps for skaters who can move vertically between differently-shaped levels.

The proposal by British firm Guy Hollaway Architects is to be constructed in Kent as part of a larger project to recreate the area and bring in new and diverse activities. The structure’s semi-transparent skin will allow views in from the surrounding sidewalks and streets.

Climbing walls and boxing rings are interspersed through the floors and aimed at a variety of ages and experience levels and activity types. The ceilings of each floor are informed by activities above, making for a rich series of building sections.

While the design is still in development, it is both impressive but features a series of missed opportunities as well, including the chance to at more vertical integration through multistory tubes, ramps or pipes. In its current iteration, skaters use side ramps to traverse floors but more sectional complexity could add new elements that truly take full advantage of the height of the building.