Made history! Apperarently there are awards for art courts.. Feeling the right energy of the project.

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This column is about “Project of The Year 2023“ first ever recived award in Japan ans sure for go parkey. The joyful colored news that go parkey has been selected among various colors and sizes of basketball playgrounds, tennis courts, soccer grounds ans parkd from the world.

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Article_go parkey

Special Thanks_Sport Group & Asia pacific project partner

We are playground basketball residents like pikeys!!!

What’s on earth??

It was this spring to hear the news that go parkey has been nominated to the finalist of the international awards run by SPORT GROUP - the world’s largest business dedicated to sport surfaces and been providing its services and products to Olympic, US OPEN and FIFA, and many local to world class sport facilities. The award is to celebrate the “jaw-dropping” outstanding projects been nominated from all over the world in last 12 months.

The awards been announced at the conference in Hawaii and soon we found out that we have won 2 awards from the finalists, which are “FEATURE FEATURE PROJECT” and the biggest award, “2023 PROJECT OF THE YEAR” , which is baically MVP of the playgrounds/sport facilities of the world!! Projects of the finalists are all amazing, such as FIFA Women’s World Cup so this tells how valuable and hornable the awards are.

It can be said that our 3 projects in Tokyo, “Hamacho Park by Shunsuke Imai“, “Okubo Park by FATE“, “Ikesei Park by Shunsuke Imai“ in 2022 left big impressions. Among these “Okubo Park“ in Kabukicho, Shinjuku,has recived the highest evaluation. The credit goes to the beautiful and hard work under over heated Tokyo summer by the artist FATE and his support artist SHUTIE. Also this beautiful project has been sucessuly archived and shared by the photograoher, Kenji Nakata, the fimler Jeremy Renault, and the designer, Riki Takasaki.

The projects are impossible to do without our international sponsors and partners such as 2K Foundation, Kevin Durant Foundation, Golden State Warriors, Rakuten Sports and Project Backboard. Additionally we cannot thank enough to the understanding and efforts of the staffs of Local City Government who have believe in the value and the right energy of the art court for the kids and community. All the efforts, made by various organizations from local to international, dedicated to the people who enjoy basketball in art courts.

It is obvious that we are not doing this projects for awards but this hornable arards winning would make our future projects with more responsibilities and right energy.

We once again realized that the art does not need words or explanation - out comon language is the art courts.

If we have the chance to be nomited to the finalist again next year - our rep, AB is more than happy to visit Hawaii for the conference! lol The Hawaian sunshine, bug waves in North Shore, nostalgic Wallo’s skate spot, hoops and playgrounds. AB wishes to recive the inspiration from them for the comming year projects. Good inputs for good outputs as art courts. Let’s see how it goes! go parkey will keep enjoying what we do in right way.

We will post another column about the trophies, which will be imported and directly handed to our hands in June! Anywats we will keep on developing and painting the projects and hand over new art courts to cities an communities!

The evaluation criterias for

2023 Sport Group Asia Pacific Project Partner Awards

were:

QUALITY OF CONSTRUCTION

・The overall quality of the installed surface and construction against industry standards and third party certification requirements (where relevant)

・Degree of difficulty in construction and/or surfacing

SUSTAINABILITY / INNOVATION / CREATIVITY

・Sustainability Initiatives incorporated into the project

・Innovation incorporated into the project by the entrant

・Creativity in the use of synthetic surfacing

PROJECT DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

If designed by entrant, the extent of originality in the project design, and/or innovation in solving complex issues

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT

Unique circumstances in relation to the project (eg the first synthetic sports facility of that nature a particular location, etc)

Here are quotation from Sport Group for our award winning project:

“go parkey helped create a set of eye-catching basketball courts located in Okubo Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. In collaboration with the artist FATE, NBA 2K Foundation and Kevin Durant Foundation, the brief was to renovate two basketball courts with museum level artistry, to engage kids and community in this famous Tokyo Park, known for being an open and free sporting hub. The design was complex, and the installation process required skill and precision, the artist even joined the Go Parkey team on site. Using Laykold materials it was a true showcase of creativity brought to life. With the impressive Renovation Art Court Project in such a prominent location, it will certainly be a feature of the park.” - Sport Group  

Lastly we would like to thank again to our first project beliver and supporter, Spalding Japan and the artist, Shunsuke Imai.

Just like a first crystal of the snow landing to the ground, every projects has the first one and it is not easy to bet on it. We could keep achiving because somebody supported our first step. We will never forget this and keep going forward - this is the way of go parkey!