Australia’s first locally designed and made smart bench, with outdoor device charging and provision for WiFi and sensors, has received a prestigious Good Design Award Winner Accolade for outstanding design and innovation.
The Aria Smart Bench is Street Furniture Australia’s first foray into the smart cities movement, says Head of Innovation June Lee Boxsell.
“For us, smart cities has two aspects. First, human-centred: we aim to bring enjoyment to public spaces and create meaningful experiences for the community. One way Aria Smart Bench answers this need is through modularity,” says Boxsell.
“Site specific solutions are important for activating public spaces. Each place has its own identity, community, history. Just as at Nike you can design your own shoe, with Aria you can design your own bench without having to build from scratch. Aria lets you mix and match different components, materials and colours to provide a unique result that is durable, tried and tested.
“Second is technology. Internationally, we are on the verge of exponential technological growth – AI, sensors, networks, autonomous vehicles and big data are all set to change our public space experience forever, so technology is now a vital part of Street Furniture Australia’s design process.
“The smart bench integrates with a table to provide outdoor device charging, with optional public WiFi and space for sensors.
“The phone is no longer just a phone: it’s how our loved ones contact us in cases of emergency, we manage our calendars, store our plane tickets – so to be out of battery can be a big problem. Some even see it as a safety issue. We thought a public space bench that enables charging at any time would be of great benefit to the community.”
The design of the Aria Smart Bench is underpinned with deep research into the needs of park users, architects and landscape architects and place custodians, says Design Advisor Mark Armstrong.
“The Aria Smart Bench represents the next generation of products for Street Furniture Australia, as it’s the result of a deep design dive using Design Thinking methods. Architects, place owners and managers, and users in parks were interviewed to understand their needs and aspirations. These research findings were distilled into a series of attributes for the seating system,” says Armstrong.
Principal Industrial Designer Danny Cheung says the design form for the Aria is contemporary yet timeless, to fit with diverse urban environments.
“Aria features a form language that we can take into the future. I wanted to achieve a distinctive aesthetic, that will not age over decades, with the flexibility of a modular system. The angular geometry allows light to create shadows and highlights for visual effect,” says Cheung.
“It is a joy and a great honour to receive recognition from your peers, particularly with such a strong field of quality designs. We thank the Good Design Awards jury and organisers for their humbling support.”
The Aria Smart Bench is described as “very well resolved” by the Good Design jury. “Aesthetically beautiful in appearance. The durability is apparent and the round edges soften the design appropriately,” they commented.
The winners of Australia’s peak industry design awards – the highest honour for design and innovation in the country – must demonstrate excellence in all areas and convince the jury they are worthy of recognition.
The panel spent several days evaluating entries according to a strict set of design criteria which covers good design, innovation and impact.
This year’s awards attracted a record number of submissions, with close to 700 design projects evaluated.
Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia, said: “Receiving a Good Design Award at this level is a significant achievement given the very high calibre of entries received this year.
“Australia’s Good Design Award is more than a symbol of design excellence, it represents the hard work and dedication towards an innovative outcome that will ultimately improve our quality of life. These projects showcase the brilliance of design and the potential it has to improve our world.”
Street Furniture Australia is proud to announce a new partnership with the Landscape Foundation of Australia, as their first Founding Partner. The Foundation is a newly formed not-for-profit dedicated to championing the protection, restoration, enhancement and sustainable management of natural environments in Australian cities and towns. With nearly 90% of Australians now living in cities and townships, the Foundation is committed to halting the decline of natural environments and restoring a sustainable relationship between people and nature, to ensure their mutual health and survival. The visionaries behind the Foundation – founding directors Linda Corkery, Noel Corkery, Catherin Bull AM and Chris Champion – share the belief that environmental degradation can be reversed through high quality planning, design and management practices. Through grant-making and facilitation, the Foundation will fund research to …
Street Furniture Australia has donated $45k of Linea show-products to Baptist Care SA’s WestCare Centre, a project nominated by Swanbury Penglase, as part of the Good Cause Giveaway for the 2023 Festival of Landscape Architecture: UN/EARTH. Now in its third year, the 2023 Good Cause Giveaway received six fantastic entries from landscape architects and Councils for local Adelaide projects, with the winner selected by the UN/EARTH Festival Creative Directorate. The jury said: “The Festival creative directors found awarding this year’s Street Furniture Australia’s (extremely generous) Good Cause Giveaway a difficult task as all of the entries were very worthy.” Winners Swanbury Penglase with 2023 AILA Festival Creative Directorate. Photo: Frankie The Creative. “We were particularly conscious of the incredible work that the team of volunteers at Baptist Care SA’s WestCare …
Cumberland City Council, the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and Street Furniture Australia in November co-hosted a factory tour and knowledge exchange for Councils about creating great public spaces and local manufacturing. Guest speakers presented enriching case studies and conversations about Country, climate, culture and community at the Street Furniture Australia factory, which is located within the Cumberland LGA in Western Sydney. 55 people attended the event. Head of Marketing and Innovation with Street Furniture Australia, June Lee Boxsell, said, “Activating Western Sydney was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas on bringing joy to our local communities while also celebrating the completion of Merrylands Civic Square — a remarkable human-centred development at the heart of Cumberland City Council. “With Street Furniture Australia positioned right at the doorstep of Western Sydney-based …
Street Furniture Australia has confirmed its ongoing six year partnership with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), signing on for a further two years. The company has been a national sponsor and supporting corporate partner since 2014. “AILA is proud to continue this relationship with our longer-term partner, Street Furniture Australia,” says Tim Arnold, AILA CEO. “Street Furniture Australia has been committed to research, innovation and supporting the landscape architecture profession. “We’ve previously joined forces on things like #BackyardExperiment and Future Street; more recently they lead a research project, Woden Experiment at the Woden Town Square in Canberra. I’m excited to see what the partnership will bring into the future.” Street Furniture Australia will be a sponsor of the 2019 International Festival of Landscape Architecture: The Square and the …
Street Furniture Australia is honoured to be named winner of the Built Environment category at the inaugural Australian Smart Cities Awards in October 2018. These are the country’s first awards recognising leadership, best practice and action to advance the smart cities movement, evaluated by a seven-person jury chaired by David Singleton AM. The winners were announced at Smart Cities Week in Sydney, organised by the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand. Street Furniture Australia received the Built Environment award for #BackyardExperiment, an eight-day activation of Garema Place, Canberra, which took place in October 2016. It was a small project that made a big impact. By adopting a people-first approach and quantifying the impact of design, the method of activation became an international case study. #BackyardExperiment was one of Australia’s first …
Street Furniture Australia has won the Research Project Award for #BackyardExperiment at Parks and Leisure Australia’s 2017 NSW and ACT Regional Awards of Excellence. NSW Business Development Manager Josine Denning was at the ceremony in Kiama to celebrate the fantastic work of local placemakers with awards for planning, events, parks, play and recreation spaces, technology, leadership and community programs. “This is my first time attending the Parks and Leisure Regional Awards. We received a wonderful warm welcome from Councils, who said they were pleased to see the wider industry participating. I found it so inspiring to see the passion and the energy in the room on this big night,” she tells StreetChat. “Our project received a lively and enthusiastic reception. It was moving to realise most present must have seen the …
