Walker Macy’s Taj Hanson has been sharing his combined interests in design, urban revitalization, and skateboarding this past year and led presentations at multiple conferences to share emerging ideas and initiatives.
At Slow Impact in Tempe, AZ, Taj’s presentation “From Obstacle Parks to Community Hubs: A New Trajectory for Skatepark Design”, sparked conversation on how we can reenvision design for active recreation as a form of placemaking. At Adjacent in Portland, OR, his presentation “Redefining Skateparks in the PNW” with Nick Pelster, expanded on this topic locally and unveiled the proposed design for The Courts 2.0, a skate plaza integrated into Portland State University’s downtown campus.
Building off of these skate-centric conference presentations, Taj took these ideas to the national ASLA Conference in New Orleans, LA in October. In collaboration with Natalia Revelo La Rotta from Colloqate and Johnny Brasley from Transitional Spaces, they presented a session titled “Inner-City Revival: Building Community Through Placemaking and Urban Recreation”. The session focused on the potential to help revive our struggling downtown environments by leveraging urban recreation as a cue for placemaking to create culturally and environmentally responsive urban recreation hubs.
Taj also headed back to Tempe, AZ in February for Slow Impact 2026 and presented alongside Thrasher Magazine’s Ted Barrow on a talk titled “This New Ledge”. The ledge (seat wall, bench, etc.) is the cornerstone to both a good public plaza and an appealing skate spot. This talk explored the relationship between the two through the bifocal lenses of design history and practice, reviewing plazas past and present and the ledges that make them great.
Below are recordings from Taj’s presentations at Slow Impact and Adjacency Bias:
From Obstacle Parks to Community Hubs | Slow Impact | Taj Hanson
Redefining Skateparks: A presentation by Taj Hanson featuring Nick Pelster from ‘Adjacent’ PDX 2025
