Best materials for an outdoor graffiti wall

Hello lovely builders

I'd like to pick your brains if I may!
I am part of a team at a community centre planning a youth engagement project. I want to set up a legal graffiti wall within the centre garden and we have permission and the promise of funding from the housing assoc. who own the centre. The area we are planning to use is enclosed by a brick wall.
I'm thinking we need to batten something to this wall that is weatherproof, sturdy and fireproof and also good for painting on, that can withstand regular blasting (every 3 months)
I'm hoping the housing assoc will also provide the builders to construct the wall but I need to give them an idea of costs so I need to know what I'm costing! The wall is about 20 feet long and six feet high.
Any problems you can see-drilling into brick etc?

Thanks in advance!

Render the wall and paint it in masonary paint, every 3 months or so/ whenever you see fit. Just paint it again!! No need for blasting ever

Sorry I should have said that we can't use the actual wall itself!

why do you want to blast the wall? surely the point is to let it build up and up until you have a crazy congestion of artwork-not some skimpy cbeebies version. kept in context-in its frame it'll look all the much better the more time people have spent adding to it. for example-http://www.highsnobiety.com/2012/03/01/the-half-graffiti-hotel-room-by-tilt/

Where's the fun in a legal graffiti wall, doesn't that sort of go against the point of 'reclaiming the streets' ?

Thanks for the link. The cleaning has been decided by the youth forum at the centre. They discussed the problem of taking ages on a piece only to have it immediately ruined with a throw up or over-tag. They also said it's nice to have a clean section of wall to work on. They have been consulted all the way through and are hugely excited about the project. Strangely a lot of the rules they have discussed for use of the wall are far more strict than anything we'd have come up with. It's their wall, they decide via the youth forum how it's used.
Lots of them are busy running around reclaiming the streets by drawing willies on bus-stops and some are trying to hone their art in the few old railway tunnels which run up what is now a country track way. These are obviously not lit and full of dog walkers in the day. They are also breaking in to buildings earmarked for development such as the old hospital.
As far as where is the fun goes-have a look at other recommended art activities for hard to reach teenagers and I think you'll agree we've nailed it. Urban art is far more acceptable now than ever and none of our young people have turned their nose up at a clean, safe, well lit environment to practice and meet like minded people. The outcome for us is that they are engaged and attending the centre.
The designs the kids have been coming up with so far show no signs of it being either skimpy or cBeebies so I'm not worried there!
The aim of the project is to engage our local kids who have been born and raised on an estate which having been there 20 years has never had a the centre open and operating properly. Shops and services are a mile away. To give you an example of attitudes on the estate, out of the 15 parents and toddlers who attend the singing group, none of them are resident on the estate. We are talking extreme apathy from the adults which is transmitted down to the children.
Thank you for the interest you've shown in the project...I still don't know what to build the damn thing out of though!!

If you can't touch the original wall how about asking some local building supplier for some support by donating some bricks/breeze blocks and asking a few brickies to volunteer their services one weekend to construct a wall that is safe but can eventually be removed if you need to vacate the premises? This could be skimmed over with render and re-painted as and when necessary by the youth teams themselves.

Explain to the building suppliers/volunteers that what you are trying to do is help the community by getting these kids off the streets and into a safer environment where they are less likely to come to harm or do damage to other peoples property etc.

emma78 said:

Lots of them are busy running around reclaiming the streets by drawing willies on bus-stops

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Meanwhile the tattoo artists are busy drawing bus stops on....

The aim of the project is to engage our local kids who have been born and raised on an estate which having been there 20 years has never had a the centre open and operating properly. Shops and services are a mile away.

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I grew up on an estate where the shops & services were a mile away, at least, and where it was probably half a mile to the nearest bus stop.

I don't recall any apathy amongst anybody.

Don't get me wrong - it's great that you're getting this centre together, but whatever the causes of the apathy are, there are going to be a lot more than the 15 minute walk to the shops.

Thank you for the interest you've shown in the project...I still don't know what to build the damn thing out of though!!

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Have you asked the users what they find the best surface?

Problem is now solved. Thanks all for your input.
The estate is complicated. In a rural area, when I say no services i mean nothing, nada, niente. It's also in an area where there was high employment at a large manufacturing plant which closed and left the majority of the population unemployed. Then both pubs got sold for development, the social club and football field went for development...a decade later and here we are. Lots of factors as always contributing to the apathy and disengagement...smart phones and xboxes also weren't around when we were all kids which helped us get off our arses I'm sure you'll agree. I'm not there to sort out all of that stuff however. I'm responding to the Tories threat to get the centre being used or see it's footprint turned into more housing.

emma78 said:

Lots of them are busy running around reclaiming the streets by drawing willies on bus-stops

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That`s a phallusy

So what solution did you come up with Emma?

emma78 said:

when I say no services i mean nothing, nada, niente.

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Ditto.

It's also in an area where there was high employment at a large manufacturing plant which closed and left the majority of the population unemployed.

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Almost certainly that's the fundamental problem

Then both pubs got sold for development,

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Our nearest one was further than the nearest bus stop.

the social club

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We didn't have any at all.

and football field

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We didn't have any at all. Although schools still did of course.

I'm not there to sort out all of that stuff however

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Maybe not.

But until someone does, what you do will never be any more than sticking plaster on a sucking chest wound.

I'm responding to the Tories threat to get the centre being used or see it's footprint turned into more housing.

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Sadly the Tories, assisted by the scumbag Lib Dems, are engaged in a programme of the wholesale dismantlement of society and its institutions. They have, with c**-in-their-pants level of delight, seized on the financial crisis as their opportunity to do what they have always wanted to do, which is to destroy the state. There is no effective political opposition - basically none of the major parties are fit to govern.

I sincerely wish you well with your endeavours, and I genuinely believe in your desire to make things work, but I have a grim foreboding that until we take to the streets and start lynching bankers and Tories, nothing will change, and since we are not going to take to the streets, we are probably doomed.

ban-all-sheds: Your post reminded me of the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch!

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
"Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah."

I'm with you on the politics of it all. I'm not a hand-wringing social worker, I'm a Mum, artist, activist and volunteer trying to drag this area kicking and screaming out of the mire in a small way. At least the kids have shown some interest in this and it's a way of getting them to attend the centre and engage with other services. It's actually a very good and professionally applied dressing on a sucking chest wound and if it works will have a direct, positive impact on the lives of the young people in this area.

Conny: I went in to Travis Perkins and spoke to the guy there who recommended the hoarding that goes around building sites. He said it has about 10 year life span and to fit it so it's a foot off the ground to protect it from sucking up damp. I then spoke to the graffiti guys that will be delivering the workshops and they agreed. Not washable really but can be painted over if necessary. If it's still going strong in ten years it can be pulled down and new hoarding put up.
The idea of the graf wall as temporary structure seems important to the housing assoc even though the wall could be re-rendered at any time thereby making it temporary without having to build a new thing....you know how office people know best about this sort of thing! Thank you for your help!

My pleasure Emma and I wish all the best with your endeavours.

Its a pity those in authority don't think along the same lines and give you some financial backing and moral support.

But hey! This is Britain so what do we expect? Take care and pop in with some updates and pics at some time.

conny said:

Its a pity those in authority don't think along the same lines and give you some financial backing and moral support.

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emma78 said:

we have permission and the promise of funding from the housing assoc. who own the centre.

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