| The outward appearance of a built-up area highly depends on such architectonic landscape construction as outdoor furniture. Outdoor structures like benches, seats, litter bins are set throughout inhabited locality and are used not just for practical purposes but for street beautification as well. So what criteria should street furniture agree with in order to be reliable in use and nice to look at?
1) The first requirement is affordability. The fundamental destination of outdoor furniture is providing necessary urban facilities for citizenry. Street beautification takes the second position. That's the reason why nobody prefers to pay more for beautiful furniture if they can obtain efficient reliable equipment with less expense. Affordability is an important criterion, but still it is not the only one.
2) Safety is also one of fundamental criteria of city furniture that should be thoroughly deliberated at the stage of designing. It applies in the first turn to the equipment for playgrounds for children. The designers should think over the height of construction objects, the shape of the constructions, sanitary conditions, surface texture and etc. The same precautions should be taken in respect of other objects of city furniture equipment.
3) Functionality and life time of street furniture structures should also be taken into consideration while projecting urban facilities. Dimensions of the element, its construction and materials used for its production should be thought over before starting production process. It is essential to protect outdoor furniture structures from the acts of vandalism, then it'll serve for years.
4) And at last we should refer to such requirement as universality. Outdoor furniture equipment is a public property so it should be designed in such a way that every citizen could use it.
So these are the fundamental requirements that should be taken into account by urban furniture producers to supply high-quality and reliable equipment for street decor. The most frequent materials for street furniture equipment are steel, wood, concrete, stone. There is also so called compound furniture that is made of 2 or more types of materials. In opinion of specialists, such furniture represents the best variant of street equipment since it corresponds to all the requirements mentioned above. |
