| The outward appearance of a town or a city depends to a greater or lesser extent on such architectonical landscape structure as outdoor furniture. Outdoor elements like benches, seats, litter bins are located throughout the whole town or city and are used not just for practical destination but for city decoration as well. So what criteria should city furniture equipment agree with in order to be reliable in service and nice-looking?
1) The first requirement is affordability. The primary purpose of street furniture is offering necessary outdoor facilities for citizens. Street decoration takes the second position. That is the reason why nobody prefers to pay more for gratifying to the eye furniture if they can acquire efficient reliable equipment with fewer expenses. Economy is a significant requirement, but still it is not the only one.
2) Safety is also one of basic requirements of street furniture that should be thoroughly thought over at the projection stage. It concerns in the first turn the structures for children playgrounds. The planners should deliberate the height of equipment elements, the shape of the equipment, sanitary conditions, surface texture and so on. The same precautionary measures should be taken in relation to other elements of urban furniture equipment.
3) Functionality and durability of outdoor furniture structures should also be taken into consideration when designing urban facilities. Overall dimensions of the object, its construction and materials used for its production should be weighed prior to the start of manufacture. It's important to protect outdoor furniture from the vandalism acts, then it will serve for a long time.
4) And eventually we should mention such criterion as universality. Urban furniture equipment is a public ownership so it should be planned in such a way that every citizen could use it.
So these are the basic requirements that should be taken into account by street furniture producers to supply high-grade and reliable equipment for city decor. The materials that are frequently used for street furniture are steel, wood, concrete, stone. There is also so called compound furniture equipment that is made of two or more types of materials. In opinion of specialists, such furniture represents the best variant of urban equipment since it complies with all the mentioned criteria. |
