The Ramp House: A Skatable Home By Archivirus
Thu, Apr 9, 2009
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All images via Archivirus
Skateboarders are a fanatical bunch, warriors on wheels who’ll ollie and grind whenever and wherever they can. Any urban space will do, but if it’s raining or there isn’t a skate park nearby, what’s a skater to do? Answer: live in the Ramp House, newly completed by Acrhivirus Architecture and Design. The Ramp House is exactly what it says it is: less a residence with a ramp than a seamless integration of half-pipe and homestead.
Given the brief of creating a “skatable habitat”, architect Athanasia Psaraki launched into creating “a curved form interior which set the whole house as well as the inhabitant’s life into motion.” She tells Environmental Graffiti: “It was more a project of passion and creativity than functionality.”
This was an undertaking that could genuinely claim to redefine a living space – actually a roof addition to a three-storey building – given that homes are not designed for skating, just as skate parks tend not to be the homeliest places.
Psaraki strove to achieve a harmonious balance between the old and the new. A wooden pergola and wooden horizontal louvers envelop the entire structure, connecting the building as it was with the way it is now – while also offering an airy spot from which to watch the action.
Far from simply having a mini-ramp installed in a living room, the skateboarding factor was incorporated into the very design details, making a home fully capable of being skated – frontside, backside, anyside. Says the architect:
“For me, the challenge of this project was to make a living space where the ramp, the bowl and all the interpretations of those terms would actually become the building elements for this space.”
Thus, by way of the architect’s imagination, straight lines became curved, and flat surfaces found new meaning as part of a ramp or a bowl. Psaraki says:
“Playing with these forms and with the variable transitions which they offer, my main goal was to create a functional open space where aspects of daily life would adopt ‘the feeling of acceleration.’”
With this in mind, Psaraki designed a home where the living room is no longer just a living room but a mini-ramp that turns into a bowl – which in turn creates a partition with the bedroom and bathroom. Meanwhile, elements like the fireplace and storage units are hidden within the ramp structures.
Through a merging of styles, concrete supplies the street skate aesthetic while wood provides a warm ambiance. Concrete walls mould into the floor, which then becomes wood, forming a ramp separating the kitchen. In this last space, at least, surely the crockery makes kick-flips a faux pas? But no.
Psaraki also reveals that experts were very much – sorry – on board: “The ramp transitions were made on site by skater friends who had experience skating mini ramps while construction details were drawn after extensive research via the internet and people who might know!”
The final effect? A skater’s dream that wouldn’t alienate those who just want an environment to chill in; a smooth environment where you “can flow from one space to the other, skating or walking”.
Turning a home into a play park for your pastime of choice is probably not a luxury everyone can aspire to, but for those who can it’s a pretty rad idea. It more than set Psaraki’s creativity in motion, with the architect concluding: “At the end of this project I definitely adopted ‘the feeling of acceleration.’”
With special thanks to Athanasia Psaraki for her insightful comments and kind permission for use of the images.
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4 Trackbacks For This Post
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popurls.com // popular today Says:
April 10th, 2009 at 1:40 ampopurls.com // popular today…
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Amazing Architecture for April 10, 2009 « Askthefm’s Weblog Says:
April 10th, 2009 at 5:16 am[...] a hous that my teenage son would love, one with a skatable interior! On Environmental Graffiti (http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/ramp-house-skatable-home-acrhivirus/9717) there is featured a skatable [...]
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La casa perfecta para un skater ( eng) Says:
April 11th, 2009 at 2:32 pm[...] La casa perfecta para un skater ( eng) www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/ramp-house-skatable-h… por Nirupo hace pocos segundos [...]
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Archvirus Creates a Skatepark House - PSFK.com Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 5:01 pm[...] [via Limité Magazine & Environmental Graffiti] [...]
April 10th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Holy shit that fucking owns
April 10th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Wow, very cool!
April 10th, 2009 at 1:23 am
You could skate all day, lol could think of a trillion uses for those ramps (non-skating).
April 10th, 2009 at 1:33 am
I feel really bad for his neighbors.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:33 am
Yeah, I bet the neighbors just love all that racket. Dumb.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:45 am
not sure if the celing is high enough in that place
April 10th, 2009 at 9:57 am
nice one, one who made it truly brave in designing.
April 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
that’s a pretty stupid idea. i know it SEEMS cool, but the real truth is that it’s in NO ways practical, and i would get really sick and tired of having all those dumb ass half pipes around the house. seriously, who would REALLY want to have to deal with not having furniture to sit on, having to be careful where they walked so they wouldn’t fall because they accidentally walked up the side of one of the half pipes, and so on? i know that seems like something that wouldn’t happen, but if you’ve got that many half pipes in your house, it’s gonna happen. this seems like something a teenager would come up with whose parents have spoon-fed their whole life.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
He must be obsessed with skateboarding. What if he was into windsurfing?
April 11th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Should have made the roof higher and got those lights out of the way. Poor design.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
this blows my mind!
May 20th, 2009 at 8:45 am
So what happens if this guy tears his ACL or something and can no longer skate anymore?
June 19th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
graphicartist2k5 must be like 50 years old, and grew up with no friends or a sense of fun. seriously i would love this house, and if you noticed its only in the kitchen and on his deck. so im sure they have furniture, use your brain old man. someone said something about noise, not sure if you noticed the giant cement slab that separates the top floor from the second, i highly doubt that the neighbors hear a whole lot. not a lot of smart observant people on here.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
i personally think its a GREAT idea i would buy it. very very good idea (Y) :D
August 13th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Now that’s a house to my liking :) well it just comes to show that people with loads of money have yet to figure out what they should do with them … wait, build a skating house.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:03 am
It needs a bit of hardening up really. My skate often shoots away in all sorts of crazy directions when I wipe out, way up in the air sometimes. Unless you’re a total pro and never pushing your luck, those glass doors and lamps are not going to last long. But hey, I’d skate there, as long as i could sing some kind of non-liability disclaimer for destroyed ornaments and fixtures!
August 30th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Yeah, you’d be doing the washing up and the next minute you’d have the nose end of a board stuck in your forehead.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
i was lucky enough to live in a house with a mini-ramp in it a few years ago.. but it was a scruffy sh*t-tip! we had some awesome times there tho, and i lived there for many happy years..
however.. this place is just AWESOME!!
style with skateable surfaces.. sweeeeeeeet!