Street furniture
Street furniture is a collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed on streets and roads for various purposes, including
benches,
bollards,
post boxes,
phone boxes,
streetlamps,
street lighting,
traffic lights,
traffic signs,
bus stops,
grit bins,
tram stops,
taxi stands,
public lavatories,
fountains and
memorials, and
waste receptacles. An important consideration in the design of street furniture is how it affects
road safety.
A
bench is essentially a chair made for more than one person, usually found in the central part of any settlement (such as
plazas and
parks). They are often provided by the local councils or contributors to serve as a place to rest and admire the view. Armrests in between are sometimes provided to prevent people lying down and/or to prevent people from sitting too close to someone who likes to keep some distance.
Bollards are posts, short poles, or pillars, with the purpose of preventing the movement of vehicles onto
sidewalks or grass etc.
Post boxes, also known as
mail boxes, are found throughout the world, and have a variety of forms: round pillar style found in
Japan and the
U.K. (the two feature a difference in that the
Japanese version has a round lid while the U.K. version is flat); rectangular blue boxes in the
United States; red and yellow boxes with curved tops in Australia, some on poles. The Canadian version is a red box with a slanted back top.
Phone boxes or
telephone booths are prominent in most cities around the world, and while ranging drastically in the amount of cover they offer users, e.g. many only cover the phone itself while others are full booths, are instantly recognisable. The widespread use of
mobile phones has resulted in a decrease in their numbers.
Streetlamps are designed to illuminate the surrounding area at night, serving not only as a deterrent to
criminals but more importantly to allow people to see where they're going. The colour of
streetlamps' bulbs differ, but generally are white or yellow.
Traffic lights (or
traffic signals) usually include three colours: green to represent "go", amber to inform drivers that the colour will alternate shortly and red to tell drivers to stop. They are generally mounted on poles or gantries or hang from wires.
Traffic signs warn drivers of upcoming road conditions such as a "blind curve", speed limits, etc. Direction signs tell the reader the way to a location, although the sign's information can be represented in a variety of ways from that of a diagram to written instructions. Direction signs are usually mounted on poles. Recently, illumination has started to be added in order to aid nighttime users.
Public lavatories allow pedestrians the opportunity to use restroom facilities, either for free or for a per-use fee.
Street furniture itself has become as much a part of many nations' identities as
dialects and national events, so much so that one can usually recognise the location by their design; famous examples of this include:
* the
red telephone boxes of
Britain* the residential
post boxes of the
United States* the
streetlamps and
metro entrances of
Paris.
The
Tiergarten park in
Berlin has a collection of antique streetlamps from around the world, both gas and electric.
* Posters are a part of
out-of-home media (also referred to as OOH). The presentation of
backlit posters is done in display boxes or street furniture components like mega-displays or
billboards. To install these street furniture components on public ground,
city councils have to agree. To get these permissions (Europe, Asia and part of the US) services and fees are offered to the cities by the outdoor advertisers.
* In Europe there is a heavy competition for public spots to do advertising in different
poster formats since these spots generate high
contact figures – means many people can possibly remember a presented advertising message on a major road or square.
* The presentation of this
advertising has to fit in the overall
public planning rules of cities and their architecture. These requirements lead to interesting design approaches for poster presentation in different formats.
* Street furniture families were designed to fit these needs. Over the years they were completed with additional components like
restrooms and automatic
toilet facilities and
kiosks to name a few.
* To finance this infrastructure
long term contracts (10 to 15 years) are signed between cities and outdoor advertising companies.
* Cities are often put in a situation to decide on new concepts when they are not familiar with the issues, since new contracts occur only very seldom. This knowledge gap is closed by a special advisor—the
street furniture report.
* This advisor gives cities some independent ideas how to act in this surrounding instead of reacting since public ground can not be enlarged.
*
Roads
*
Park furniture*
Public art*
Door furniture*
Garden furniture*
City of Boston, Mass. (USA) Street Furniture Program*
CIS-Street furniture*
Helsinki (Finland) Street Museum*
Street Furniture Australia*
Street Furniture & Amenities in Vancourver, B.C., Canada
