Fulfill the dream: advancing skateboarders’ agency through experimenting and interaction with urban infrastructure

Abstract

Skateboarders have a passionate relationship with urban infrastructures, which offer them an endless playground but also provoke the imagination to rework the built environment. This paper analyses a case study of Pirkanmaan Kaarikoirat, a skateboarding association from Tampere, Finland, and it unravels the experimental interaction between the skateboarders and the pulp-drying building infrastructure that was transformed into the Kenneli DIY skatepark. We approach urban infrastructure as a base that offers opportunities for a new kind of growth, both in a material and social sense. Following experimental interaction demonstrates the capacity of infrastructure to allow novel learning processes, partnerships, and material ontologies that have wider implications in the politics of urban development.