Spot files · 24—26 / Index

OFFCUT®

OFFCUT® — Index

tips@offcut.example — Studio on the quay, Rotterdam

Skate brand & film unit — Rotterdam

Boards / Films / Spot files

Skate it beforeit goes.

A board resting on the edge of a worn concrete ledge
Portrait of a skater in a cap at a skatepark at night
A skater mid-ollie over an open concrete slab

Decks pressed from furniture-factory offcuts. Films of the spots the city is about to pour over.

Selected spot files

03 of 19

File 07

  • Film — 22 min
  • Deck series 07
  • Archive copy

Poured over — Mar 2025

Kade 14Ledges

A skateboard balanced on the worn edge of a concrete ledge at dusk

Granite ledges on a closed quay, skated for forty-one nights before the bollards went in. The deck graphic is the quay’s own survey drawing.

Watch file 07

File 11

  • Film — 14 min
  • Photo zine
  • Spot fund

Fenced — Aug 2025

GraansiloBank

A skater mid-ollie above a concrete slab, palm trees and floodlights behind

A forty-degree loading ramp at the foot of the grain silo. Half the city learned to carve on it; the other half drove trucks up it. Now neither does.

Watch file 11

File 16

  • Film — night sessions
  • Sound piece

Still standing — for now

NoordLevel −2

A painted underground passage lit by a single drawn question mark of light

The bottom floor of a car park scheduled for “repurposing”. Painted walls, perfect floor, one exit. We filmed it the only way it can be filmed: after midnight, with the lights we brought.

Watch file 16

Our position — 01

Cities build the best spots by accident and remove them on purpose. We work in the gap between the two.

We don’t sell nostalgia. Every deck carries the coordinates of a spot that existed, and ten percent of every board keeps the next one open.

Anatomy of a spot file — 02

Seven steps, six weeks

Six weeks,one ledge.

  1. Legs in patterned trousers against a rough concrete wall
    01 — The tip A message from a local: the loading dock behind the print works has six weeks.
  2. Worn sneakers hanging over the edge of a concrete ledge above the street
    02 — Scouting We measure the ledge, pace the run-up and write down who owns it and who guards it.
  3. Two hands steadying a camera with a long lens
    03 — The session Nightly sessions, two cameras, one rule: skaters from the block go first.
  4. A young skater in a cap and hoodie at a skatepark at night
    04 — The portrait Everyone who skated it gets a portrait and a credit. No sponsor names on the frame.
  5. A red skateboard lying across the white stripes of a crossing
    05 — The notice When the fence goes up we film the last day — and the first day of the new surface.
  6. Three skateboard decks with printed graphics laid on pale concrete
    06 — The deck The spot’s survey drawing becomes the graphic. Three hundred boards, numbered, pressed from offcuts.
  7. A single framed black-and-white photograph on a bare white gallery wall
    07 — The archive One free screening as close to the fence as we can get. Then the file goes to the city archive — the only place the spot still exists.

Proof — 03

Said about the files

“They filmed the dock behind our print works for six weeks. When it was gone, the only proof it was ever skated was their file — and a board on my wall with its floor plan.”

Ilse VermeerOwner, Drukkerij Vermeer

“They asked before they filmed, credited every skater by name and handed the footage to the archive. In twenty years of collecting, that has never happened.”

Daan OkaforCollections, city archive

“First deck I ever bought that told me where it came from.”

Sami, 15Kade 14 local

Updates

From the quay

Ques­tions

Where does the wood come from?

Seven-ply maple offcuts from two furniture factories in Brabant. We press in batches of three hundred; the width of the offcuts decides how many shapes a run can have.

Can I send you a spot?

Yes. Send the location, who owns it if you know, and how long it has left. We answer every tip, including the ones we cannot film.

Do you film without permission?

We ask owners first. When the answer is no, we film from public ground and say so in the credits.

Where does the ten percent go?

To the spot fund: legal advice for crews keeping DIY spots alive, and concrete for the ones the city agrees to keep.

← All skills