Tokyo Kindergarten from the air. Photo: Kashiwa Sato
The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen:
At Fuji Kindergarten outside Tokyo, kids are encouraged to follow their impulses to run, climb, slide and play.
Their oval-shaped school, with a low round roof for infinite running games, is designed by Tokyo-based firm Tezuka Architects to dissolve boundaries and invite the outdoors inside.
“We had to build around the trees already there on the land. It wasn’t easy — we couldn’t cut the roots, which spread as wide as the tree crowns. We added these safety nets so the students wouldn’t fall through the holes around the trees,” says designer Takaharu Tezuka.
“But I know kids, and they love to play with nets. Whenever they see a hammock, they want to jump into it, to shake it. These were really just an excuse for me to give the kids another way to play.”
Read via the TED-Ed Blog how Tezuka built a school based on openness, community, and noise.
Washington Women’s March. Photo: Kamala Harris
Democracy Still Lives in Public Spaces:
In January more than 600 rallies attracted thousands of protesters marching in opposition to the agenda and rhetoric of President Donald Trump in 80 countries around the world.
Some 500,000 people turned out for the Women’s March in Washington, the unexpected numbers forcing organisers to abandon plans to march towards the White House.
Public transport was packed and Interim DC Police Chief Peter Newsham said, “The crowd stretches so far that there’s no room left to march.”
While President Trump protests about the media misrepresenting the popularity of his inauguration, those marching together in public spaces can see and feel the crowds, or lack of, for themselves.
Juliet Kahne, for the Project for Public Spaces, speaks about how public spaces serve democracy, in tandem with social media, when citizens need them most.
Red telephone boxes.
Seeing society in every bin and lamp post:
London’s street furniture design is a highly contested space. Lovers of classic styles have chained themselves to lamp posts threatened with replacement. Red K2 telephone boxes, post boxes, parking metres designed by Kenneth Grange from the sixties, even electrical junction boxes have been fought over, adopted by communities, placed in museums as objects of art.
Keith Bruce, in the Scotland Herald, talks with Dr Eleanor Herring from the Glasgow School of Art, about these surprising totems of British class struggle.
Successful products are often followed by copycats. Over the past year we have become aware of an increase in reproductions of the Linea range attempting to create a similar aesthetic at a lower price. This can compromise the overall durability and environmental credentials of projects being delivered, affect ongoing maintenance requirements, and in some instances pose a risk of injury to the public. The design of Linea is deceptively simple while delivering exceptional attention to detail. Details matter not only for beauty, but also for providing durability, and safety, that will last decades. Linea strictly uses the highest quality and sustainable materials, has passed rigorous strength tests, and is designed for longevity, with easily replaceable parts. The product range is the result of hundreds of hours of research and development …
Melissa Gerke, our Communications and Education Specialist, is bringing a fun, interactive and informative presentation about our carbon neutral journey and latest products to customers in cities around Australia and in the US. In 30 minutes (plus Q&A) we will explore materials and finishes, touch and feel samples, and bond with your colleagues over delicious treats. There will also be a mystery prize for a lucky winner (optional). 2024 cities and dates include: Select from three catering options (optional): To book, contact Melissa Gerke mgerke@streetfurniture.com
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 …
StreetChat interviews new AILA National President Linda Corkery. Linda is a highly respected landscape architect with a trifecta portfolio of responsibility: AILA National President, Associate Professor at UNSW and Director of Corkery Consulting. We chat about AILA, the future of cities and how women are faring in her industry. Can you tell us about your journey, from the US to Hong Kong, to Australia? My journey to landscape architecture started at Cornell University in upstate New York. At Cornell, I completed master degrees in urban and regional planning and in landscape architecture. There were a few international students in the program, including an Australian fellow I got to know quite well, Noel Corkery. I finished my studies and headed to Chicago, working first in an urban planning consultancy and then in …
Nicholas Camerer’s prize-winning Hatch Seat is the new centrepiece of a community garden for Karen refugees. Street Furniture Australia manufactured the seat as part of the Intergrain Urban Timber Project competition, which challenged graduate and student landscape architects to design a meaningful piece for the Historic Farm Precinct in Victoria. The resurrected kitchen garden is a place for Karen refugees from Burma to learn new skills and share their culture, the result of a volunteer program by Parks Victoria and Werribee Park in partnership with AMES (Adult Multicultural Education Services). Camerer’s design features red, white and blue panels to represent the colours of both the Karen and Australian flags. Robust timber cross beams double as a leaning rack for gardening tools when not in use as a seat. The landscape architect, from …
by Jason Packenham. Urban leaders are reimagining Australia’s future cities, starting with Streets 2.0 – a cross-disciplinary forum held in Sydney – with the conversation to continue in March at the Cities 4.0 Summit in Melbourne. With autonomous vehicles on the horizon, now is the time for such events. Provocative discussions at Streets 2.0 raised as many questions as answers. In continuing this provocation, this piece is as much a recap as it is a wondering of where to from here. What do we mean by the street? What role do streets play in our cities today? What do we want and need from them? Looking forward, what is their role in a future with autonomous vehicles? How do we achieve some of the grand visions of Streets 2.0? Are they possible? …
