Kinematics of Urban Movment
The research connects skateboarding movement with the design of skateable spaces.
The interactive study below presents 18 attempts captured at MIT.nano’s Immersion Lab during IAP 2026. Measured marker points accompany an illustrative body fit and skateboard.
Date 2024
Project Type: Design, Research
Keywords: Skateboarding, Body Tracking, Data, LLM
Team: Rodrigo Gallardo,
Adivsor: Mark Goultorpe
Pedro Barros and Murilo Peres, Niterói, 2019. Photograph: Marcelo Maragni / Red Bull Content Pool.
Skateboarding is defined by a dual pursuit: pushing athletic limits while continually expanding the space of possible tricks. Performance is inseparable from creativity, the ability to invent, adapt, and recombine movement into novel lines.
Because skateboarding unfolds through, and is shaped by, the built environment, creativity is also a property of the spaces that afford motion. This research asks: can skateboarding creativity be (1) computationally characterized and (2) systematically enhanced through environmental design?
The framework integrates computer vision and machine learning with an NLP-inspired notion of “trick grammars”, structured representations of trick primitives and valid transitions, and uses multi-objective optimization to link movement patterns to spatial features, enabling both measurement and generative design.
From motion to matter
Layered concrete forms bring the study into physical space.
Concrete 3D printing: Hive ASMBLD. Process documentation supplied by Rodrigo Gallardo.
Exhibition — Kinetics of Urban Movement
Curators: Rodrigo Gallardo, Shane Yee, and Bobby King
Graphic design: Andrea Sáenz Barela
Exhibition photography: Estefan Obasi
Concrete 3D printing: Hive ASMBLD
The exhibition brings skateboarding, architectural models, and urban history into a shared space.
