BBC Documentaries

Skatepark designers Nine Yards

Loading player...
Nine Yards, the designers behind the Paris 2024 Olympic skatepark, get to work on their next big challenge: the rebuild of Olympiaplein, one of Amsterdam's oldest and most cherished skating spots. Sean Allsop joins designers Jesper Kuipers and Jeroen Van Eggermond in the Netherlands, as they work through sketches and plans before presenting their vision to local skaters for crucial feedback. Then the team head out onto the building site, with concrete trucks, tight deadlines, and one shot to get the surface smooth for skaters of all levels, before the gates open and a community gets to skate again. We explore how skating has evolved from an underground sport into an established movement, the community within skateparks, and the intricate detail that goes into every park.
2 Aug 8PM English United Kingdom Education

Other recent episodes

The engineers: Flying at the edge

Aviation is being reimagined for a changing planet: Vertical take-off passenger cars for city centres. Hydrogen powered planes for zero carbon travel. Hyper-sonic flights to take the London to Sydney journey to under two hours. Kelly Latimer, US Aerospace engineer, flight test pilot, and former Flight Test Director of Virgin…
4 Aug 8PM 51 min

Getting Gaza back online

Amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub. Even before the 7 October 2023 attack and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas, NGOs, with the backing of Google, had sought to develop tech start-ups in the Gaza strip. The digital economy…
3 Aug 8PM 28 min

What is so-called 'Jihadi cool'?

The extremist content quietly spreading on TikTok and Instagram, targeting unsuspecting young people. Through what is disguised as innocuous lifestyle content, supporters of jihadist groups like IS and al-Qaeda reach audiences outside their echo chamber. This is a recruitment drive that signals a move from direct operational instructions to “do-it-yourself…
1 Aug 8PM 29 min

A Chinese dissident's journey

When Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, it kicked off a chain of events that led to him serving jail time and losing his job. But it also sparked the beginning of a deep desire…
1 Aug 8AM 26 min

Wildfires in Europe

Wildfires continue to burn across the continent. Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Greek island of Crete, as well as in western France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. A blaze in central Spain has burned almost 80,000 hectares over the last week and is now considered the largest recorded…
31 Jul 8PM 25 min
All episodes