d.i.y

Ryan Carpenter. Front smith in the Bird Bath.

The (almost) Complete Guide to Nor Cal’s DIY Spots (part 1)

“I could say I remember it like it was yesterday but that would be a lie – in fact it seems like a lifetime ago. No smartphones, no email, weed was illegal no matter what your doctor cared to write, and the strippers had zits on their asses in Portland. Looking back it seems like 1995 was a completely different world than what exists today. I mean shit was real seedy back then and modern day terms like gentrify just weren’t in the average American’s vernacular. But even without the aid of booking flights and hotels online and the fantasy of transporting legal weed we somehow still made it to Burnside that summer because we fucking had to. “Build it and they will come” may be a corny ass line from a Kevin Costner movie but in the case of the granddaddy of DIY, it’s pretty much the way it was…” – Bruce Rodela

Professional D.I.Y. in Glücksburg, north Germany

Starting to write this article, I wondered about the term ‘professional d.i.y.’ which has been quietly existing for a while now. I mean, since the serious skatepark building business nowadays seems to be in the hand of skateboarders pretty much isn’t every project kind of professional d.i.y.? Well, we as skateboarders do it ourselves (just like the whole industry used to be), if we get paid for it or not, it’s bloody d.i.y., isn’t it!? We take matters into our own hands, this is something we should be really, really proud of and continue to do so.

Basement Bowl – Titus Skateshop – Cologne, Germany

In late summer we started a very special project in the basement of our store in Cologne. We had that space of approximately 60 square meters and thought of building a little bowl area down there. We had small experience from our DIY projects in Berlin, Münster and Wuppertal. But this project was special.