Researchers from the Queensland University of Technology have engaged with older people living in high-density Brisbane, to come up with key design considerations for more usable and comfortable public spaces. Here are seven:
A wide variety of places to sit, to enjoy being out in public and watching people. Usable, universal design seating – rather than having to sit on the grass – is especially important for older people as rest-stops or destinations.
Hand rails on stairs and steep paths for safety and confidence.
Drinking fountains and trees for shade and comfort.
Plentiful and clean public toilets. The lack of such facilities can be debilitating and an obstacle to some older people’s enjoyment of the public realm.
Wider paths and safer buffers between pedestrians and high-traffic roadways.
Safer and clearly posted pedestrian crossings on busy thoroughfares. Older people avoided walking in some urban areas because of concerns about crossing roads.
Clearer delineation on paths between areas for cyclists and runners and those who tend to move more slowly.
Read the article by Desley Vine and Laurie Buys from QUT on The Conversation.
First photos of the Hyperloop Test Track:
Hyperloop One have revealed images of a 500-metre test track of their high-speed transport system.
Out in the Nevada desert, the 3.3 metre wide, soon to be more than 3km long, near-vacuum tube aims to propel a pod-like vehicle at speeds faster than aeroplanes.
Australia has long toyed with proposals for a high-speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne to allow travel between the two cities in an hour: the Devloop, ready for its first trial by mid-year, may be a solution.
The City of Sydney celebrates International Women’s Day with a review of top city spaces named for powerful Australian women of our past, including at Barangaroo, Nielsen’s Terrace, Jessie Street Gardens, the Kirsova Playgrounds, Lilian Fowler Reserve or Bunn and Murray Streets.
To celebrate the unveiling of the Piatto Chair at our annual product launch party with AILA NSW in Sydney, Jazz at The Mint, clients were invited to enter this quirky contest. The competition called for teams to incorporate Piatto Chairs into an ‘Awkward Family Photo’ portrait, for a chance to win Piatto Chairs of their very own. Congratulations to the creative crew from Yerrabingin, who delivered the strongest awkward family vibes on the night. Highly commended goes to the entrants below, and the full photo gallery from the event is available for viewing. Please contact marketing@streetfurniture.com if you would like to request a high res file to print and frame for your best room.
Clients from Sydney, Adelaide, California and Texas joined Street Furniture Australia and AILA NSW to celebrate the unveiling of new products on March 14, 2024, with margaritas and live music. Jazz at The Mint is an annual product launch held at The Mint, an iconic site in the heart of the Sydney CBD. It is an elegant affair and a unique opportunity to connect with landscape architects and built environment professionals at a global scale. This year’s party featured the new Linea Planter System and upcoming Piatto Chair, a single-seater hybrid between cafe and robust public space furniture – available now for specifications. The gathering was opened by Uncle Allan Murray, representing the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council, with speeches from: Ben Stockwin, AILA CEO, acknowledged the 10 year relationship with …
The Street Furniture Australia 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 run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. This tour is open to design specifiers such as landscape architects and architects, and place custodians including Councils, government agencies, developers and other place managers. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “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 …
Six women passionate about landscape joined the International Women’s Day breakfast table with Street Furniture Australia, to discuss equality and this year’s theme, #BeBoldForChange. Industry veteran Oi Choong says landscape architecture encouraged her to be bold from the start – to her, it was a “joy” of the profession. “It was a new profession, so you were able to reach your tentacles everywhere. We were allowed to extend our vision and be bold. We experimented, we tried to integrate with other disciplines. We claimed our territory,” she says. With more than thirty years of practice in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, China and the UAE, the current Consulting Partner with Context says offers to work internationally were joyously formative in her early career. “They gave me the opportunity to leap in, almost blindly, …
Craig Czarny, a Director of Hansen Partnership, has worked for almost 30 years across major public projects, including urban improvement and regeneration initiatives in Australia and overseas. As an Urban Designer and Landscape Architect based in Melbourne, he promotes a special brand of ‘strategic design’ to projects in far-flung regions of Asia, with project work in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and China. Can you give us an insight into your thinking about Australian design knowledge as an export? As a young Australian practitioner in the 1980s, I recall looking principally to the US and Europe for inspiration. Having worked in both these regions in the early nineties, and observing the maturing of the landscape architecture discipline in Australia, I think it’s due time for us to export our skills …
By Winnifred R Louis. Parks that ‘feel’ unsafe can become trapped in a vicious cycle fuelled by underuse, writes psychology professor Winnifred Louis for StreetChat, but these public spaces can be saved. WL: This is a write-up of a presentation that I gave for the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), and I want to credit their event which was very interesting and fun. If you are wondering why we need to think about fear in parks, my answer is that it is important on two fronts. One, for managing actual risks for park users, and two, managing their risk perceptions. There are a heap of guidelines and standards that address the first task, and one reason for the AILA event was to raise awareness of new guidelines (about mitigating the …
