This Abandoned Department Store Is Set for Demolition. Now The Skateboarders Rolled In.
HuffPost
"Shredenhams shows that even a dead department store can be reimagined. The high street isn’t dead, it just needs to change direction."
Skateboarders are giving new life to a massive abandoned department store.
The ground floor of the 1957-opened building that used to house Debenhams in Bristol, southwest England, has been transformed — albeit only temporarily — into Shredenhams, an indoor skate park and creative hub.
Long-forgotten shelving units, timbers and a whole host of other materials that were abandoned and destined for the trash have been rescued and repurposed.
“The bottom half of the old escalators got turned into quarter pipes,” Tim Noakes, of the not-for-profit Campus Skateparks, which is running the venue, told HuffPost. “It’s probably the best metaphor for this whole project — taking something built for consumerism and turning it into something playful and expressive.”
The store closed its doors in May 2021 after Debenhams entered administration, a process similar to going into Chapter 11 in the U.S.
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