Two weekends ago I had to go to a park in the Copenhagen metro area for a class assignment. Our task was to analyze the park using Jan Gehl's scale for urban quality. We also had to draw the space and make notes about the temperature, number of people present etc. Anyway, I chose to go to the Plug n Play park in the newly developed area of Ørestad. The park was built in 2008 and is divided into sporting areas. There is a dirt bike course, a roller rink, basketball courts, a soccer field, and a parkour park.
Parkour (sometimes called free running) is an emerging sport that focuses on one's ability to get from point A to point B - conquering any obstacle in your path and NEVER moving backward. YouTube videos will show that this is a high flying, acrobatic, and very physically demanding sport. Much like street skateboarding, parkour is about using your environment to your advantage in order to move from point A to B in a fast and stylish manner. Typically, parkour is about reclaiming the urban environment, rather than having the concrete and steel edifices of the urban landscape conquer us. Many purists in the sport will say that all skills must be honed in the streets and never in a padded gym. However, this one of a kind parkour park in Ørestad is a happy medium between the "streets" and a padded gym.
The parkour park was designed by Team JiYo, a local parkour group. It is an impressive training center and is supposedly the first of its kind in the world. Concrete slabs have been thoughtfully arranged to create a realistic street feel. There are many features of the park which allow you to try your moves. Overall, I was really impressed with the park. The fact that the city has funded a parkour park is also testament to the growing popularity of the sport.
-John
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