Urban furniture: What it is, types and examples
What is street furniture in construction?
Urban furniture is known as all that furniture that is in public or semi-public spaces, almost always in outdoor spaces. Due to the nature of the space where they are located and their use and function, it is more likely to find them fixed or semi-fixed. They are also called urban equipment, outdoor furniture, urban furniture or public furniture.
What counts as street furniture?
Urban furniture is divided into groups according to its function, which can be recreational, rest, for human navigation, lighting, waste management, protection, hygiene, security and temporary shelter, as well as other specific services.
They can be benches, litter bins, bike racks, bus stops, bollards, tree pits, chairs, tables, picnic tables, drinking fountains, pedestrian lights, urban lights, signs, planters, fountains, among many more.
The successful closure of an urban project in Venezuela must contain urban furniture that includes functionality, to resist extreme vandalism, road and pedestrian safety, mobility, visual aspects and aesthetics.
Types of street furniture
Rest: they provide a place of rest, relaxation or contemplation in a certain public area. All types of benches, chairs, benches and seats such as picnic tables, gazebos and loungers.
Gaming, entertainment and fun: they offer an entertainment service to their users such as benches with a table that have an integrated game board to play checkers and chess. It also includes playgrounds.
Lighting: to illuminate an open space at night. They provide a greater sense of safety to pedestrians and help to emphasize certain paths or areas of a space. For example, a specific path in a park or an entrance to a particular sector will be delimited with luminous bollards.
Human navigation: all load-bearing signage elements that allow a person to locate in a certain public space such as directional, restrictive, informative signs, guide maps. For example, a directional sign with arrows indicating important destinations such as restrooms or tourist sites.
Waste management: all types of garbage containers are available, in which their capacity, shape, fixing, use and type of waste they receive are adapted to the space they serve, small or large , tilting or fixed, with lid or without lid, for dog waste, organic and inorganic waste.
Temporary shelter or refuge: these are the bus stops that offer shade and protection from the rain and in some cases from the cold and wind. Includes benches, rechargers and lighting.
Complementary urban furniture: urban advertising and information furniture, drinking fountains, parasols or umbrellas, flower pots, tree grates, railings, delimiters, bicycle racks or bicycle parking lots, confinement of cycle paths (cycle paths), telephone booths, parking meters, magazine and newspaper kiosks, drinking fountains, sculptures, busts, statues and planters.
Urban furniture can be made of any resistant material, such as iron, wood, steel, concrete and even plastic.
It should be noted that this type of furniture manufactured in concrete deserves a separate mention due to the great progress it has had in recent years, especially in relation to the formulation, as well as the addition of materials and finishes.
Uses of concrete in street furniture
Prefabricated concrete elements (called concrete in Spain) can be structural such as beams, columns, load-bearing wall panels, hollow-core slabs, among many others. And non-structural, also called architectural, focused more on design such as ornaments on columns, decorative blocks, gargoyles or urban furniture.
Most of the street furniture is exposed to the elements. The use, the rain, the cold, the heat, the contamination, the vegetation, the fauna and even possible vandalism attacks mean that the urban furniture requires constant maintenance, repair and rehabilitation actions, when the materials and the suitable products.
Today, thanks to the use of concrete in these structures, it is possible to obtain pieces of urban furniture that are highly resistant, versatile and sustainable over time.
Precast concrete has transformed, facilitated and optimized the realization of projects with very specific requirements, both at a technical and design level.
Unlike other materials, it is also capable of adapting to the different spaces of a city, as well as its architectural styles.
Advantages of using concrete street furniture
<strong>Excellent thermal insulation and at the same time, it is a non-flammable material that does not spread fire in case of fires. Two characteristics that give it efficiency in construction and energy savings. Especially, for the construction of playgrounds, benches, tables, railings, among others.
Hurricane-proof resistance and very strong impacts. The high resistance against impacts or high pressures is one of the most outstanding and recognized advantages of concrete.
If we take it to the field of urban furniture, it is especially interesting, since not only would it not be damaged by adverse weather events, but it can even be a means of protection against unexpected events.
No need for maintenance and cleaning. Linked to the previous advantage, concrete is one of the few construction materials that does not require maintenance. Which makes it an ideal option for urban decorative and construction solutions.
It is a way to reduce public spending on actions to repair, rehabilitate and improve public spaces due to lack of maintenance and misuse.
It can take any shape and style. The malleability of prefabricated concrete allows us to obtain pieces with any shape and style, an advantage that is not possible with other materials. At least not to the extent and with the possibilities that concrete allows.
In this way, it is possible to carry out highly innovative projects that improve the quality of life and well-being of citizens.
It even allows damaged pieces to be replaced by new ones reproduced with prefabricated concrete so that the traditional architecture of a city is not altered.
It is innovative. The testing of different mixtures of sand and cement or the inclusion of novel ingredients, such as bacteria to make it self-repair, make this material evolve towards better forms.
Environmentally friendly. In its composition we only find water, cement and sand, ingredients that do not affect the environment, are totally natural and at the end of its useful life it can be recycled.
Low cost. Its ingredients are very abundant, they are in multiple parts of the planet and easily transported.
What are urban planters?
We are going to turn our attention to urban planters among the many elements of urban furniture.
It is that apart from being decorative and beautifying the city and the specific place where they are distributed after design by specialists, urban planters offer the citizens of a population a certain degree of relaxation, reducing the stress of the accelerated pace of life.
Another important benefit is that they reduce the environmental impact, improve temperatures, improve air quality and absorb noise caused by traffic.
And lastly, they serve as delimiting elements for the passage of vehicles. Or to separate environments of the same space.
Its multiple shapes and sizes allow infinite distribution possibilities
Street furniture: prices
In Venezuela the prices of these elements are varied, depending on the materials with which the concrete was made, the model, the use and the size. If we focus on concrete as the main material, although they can be combined with wood, metal or plastic in their final finish, prices range from $60 to $600.
Urban furniture of quality and design is the real possibility to magnify your projects and make them unique. It is also a tool for social cohesion by generating spaces where people, citizens can interact, interact and consolidate the spirit of community.
When does the need for street furniture arise?
Urban furniture emerged with a sedentary lifestyle, around the year 3,000 B.C. when the first cities were created At that time it was important for people to meet in public spaces, either to listen to speakers, or simply to meet other people in moments of leisure and distraction.
Later they lit up the cominerías with torches giving way to the luminaires or lighting poles that we use today. And so street furniture evolved according to the needs of each place and its population.
The Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the development of urban furniture, which was of great importance in the city of Paris, a benchmark city since the eighteenth century as the capital of Europe. His concern for urban planning and its ordering in the mid-eighteenth century were an incentive to order and development.
