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Piatto Chair has been recognised in Australia’s International Good Design Awards for Excellence in Design and Innovation. Sydney, Friday 20 September 2024 – The 2024 Australian Good Design Awards were unveiled, showcasing the pinnacle of design excellence in a grand ceremony at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney. This year’s theme, “The Design Effect” underscored the crucial role design plays in shaping better products, services, spaces, and experiences while driving the transition to a more sustainable, less carbon-intensive future. Piatto Chair received a prestigious Good Design Award in the Product Design category for exceptional design and innovation. The Jury praised Piatto Chair commenting: The Piatto Chair offers a robust and aesthetically pleasing solution for public domain seating. Its ability to withstand outdoor conditions while remaining movable and adaptable showcases a thoughtful approach …

Linea Planters and Frame Planters are keeping plants healthy while reducing maintenance costs, thanks to wicking beds. Wicking beds by WaterUps save up to 80% of water when compared with traditional drip irrigation. According to WaterUps, watering is only necessary every two weeks in summer, decreasing to four weeks in autumn and six weeks in winter.  Wollongong City Council first installed wicking beds in their planters in 2019. Before installation the Council’s gardeners were watering their plants two to three times a week.  “Now, when it gets warm, we’re probably just doing it once a week, depending on what’s in there and how big the pot is,” says Wollongong Council horticulturist Peter Parsons. There are currently 240 planters across Wollongong CBD maintained by the council, with about 90% watered with …

Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …

Street Furniture Australia has a long history of design and research collaborations with the University of NSW. Francis McArdle, our Head of Product Design is a Casual Tutor at UNSW – a role which is valuable in maintaining strong ties between our industry and the University. Most recently the Industrial Design teaching staff together with Francis ran a competition for a group of 2nd year students. StreetChat asked Francis to tell us all about it. How did this Street Furniture Australia/UNSW collaboration come about? The competition was held during Term 1 this year, with students from Industrial Design Studio 2A, which I was a casual tutor in supporting the course convenor. Their Studio project was centred on “Design for Public Space,” with students asked to design a new bike rack. …

Street Furniture Australia’s factory in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We host fun and informative factory tours for customers throughout the year, to show how our products are designed, tested and built, and to share our latest products and projects. This is a free group event catering to landscape architects, architects, and asset managers from government agencies. Director of Tract Julie Lee said of the tour: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn …

Cities for “small men” – gender and urban planning: In The City for “Small men” – mode, median or just plain mean? Claire Martin, landscape architect and Associate Director of OCULUS’ Melbourne studio, outlines gender sensitive thinking concepts and methodologies for urban planning. In the world of medicine, until relatively recently the World Bank reports that “medication doses [were] typically adjusted for patient size with women considered ‘small men’” – Martin writes that “despite women, girls, and sexual and gender diverse people making up over 50% of the world’s population, it seems Western planning, like medicine, has had a similarly blinkered view of men as the locus for the universal model.” “While gender inequality impacts people of all ages and backgrounds looking at the person specifically, not typically, is paramount …