Trend Watch September 2020

PARK(ing) Day: Don’t Stop at the Curb

The international day of transforming car spots into parklets has inspired reflection this month on the value of resilient, equitable and inclusive streets – particularly during a pandemic, writes Carolina Samponaro for Lyft.

Read about her observations of 2020 PARK(ing) Day.

Image: Tulsa PARK(ing) Day, 2020, Project for Public Spaces.

Gensler: The Pandemic May Accelerate 20-Minute Cities:

Giving up the daily commute in favour of working from home may be a lasting effect of COVID-19 that leads to a push for greater service availability in local neighbourhoods, writes Ed Garsten for Forbes.

International architectural, development and planning firm Gensler is focused on that sea change in how we go about our business, he writes, working with communities and automakers on how to make the ’20-minute city’ a reality.

Read the article on Forbes.

Image: Hollywood Boulevard reimagined by Gensler.


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recent news

Contest winner: Awkward Family Photo

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.

  • 25 mar 2024
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120 landscape architects gather at the annual Jazz at The Mint

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 …

  • 25 mar 2024
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Book your spot on a 2024 Factory Tour

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 …

  • 20 nov 2023
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related news

Trend Watch August 2020

Designing streets for kids: Released in August by the Global Designing Cities Initiative, “Designing Streets for Kids,” offers strategies and solutions to redesign urban streets and public spaces by focusing on the needs of kids and caregivers, with the goal of making streets beautiful, fun – and safe. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young people ages 5-29 globally, and traffic congestion and vehicles contribute to high levels of air pollution, which is responsible for the death of 127,000 children under the age of five each year, the guide’s authors said. Many of these deaths, they said, can be dramatically reduced through kid-friendly street design. Read the Forbes article, How to Make Streets Kid-Friendly by Tanya Mohn. Image: A street in Fortaleza, Brazil, designed according to ‘Designing Streets …

  • 27 aug 2020
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Trend Watch July 2020

What happens to public space when everything moves outside? To create room for social distancing in the pandemic recovery period, restaurants, bars and cafe tables are spilling out onto city streets, writes Feargus O’Sullivan for Bloomberg CityLab – sometimes skipping past the sidewalk and into parking spots and vehicle lanes. “The movements of these private businesses into new spaces pose new challenges about who gets to occupy outside spaces that are increasingly in demand,” he says. “Reopened parks, one of the few place to freely and safely congregate during coronavirus, are frequently packed. Many streets already have sidewalks filled with lines of people waiting to enter stores enforcing a low customer capacity. Add a new range of table service businesses to this busy streetscape, and issues about who get priority …

  • 29 jul 2020
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Trend Watch June 2020

“The Children Got Better Grades Learning Outside” Matluba Khan, Lecturer in Urban Design at Cardiff University, redesigned a school in Bangladesh to include outdoor learning elements requested by the students and teachers – and studied the results. Her research showed that the children’s maths and science improved with teaching and learning outdoors. “The Grade IV children performed significantly better in maths and science compared to a comparable school which had had no change in the environment,” she writes. “Hands-on learning outdoors made learning fun and engaging for everyone, but particularly benefited underachievers. We found that children who didn’t interact much in the classroom setting were more pro-active and participated more in their outdoor sessions.” Read about the project in The Conversation. Hundreds of Bus Stops Turned Into Bee Sanctuaries: The …

  • 26 jun 2020
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