| The outward appearance of a town or a city depends to a greater or lesser extent on such architectural landscape construction as street furniture. Outdoor elements like seats, benches and litter bins are situated throughout city and are used not only for practical purposes but for urban beautification as well. So what criteria should city furniture meet in order to be reliable in operation and pleasant to look at?
1) The first criterion is affordability. The principal function of outdoor furniture equipment is providing necessary street facilities for citizenry. Outdoor decoration takes the second place. That's why nobody prefers to pay more for gratifying to the eye furniture if they can acquire economical reliable equipment with less expense. Affordability is a significant criterion, but still it isn't the only one.
2) Safety is also one of basic requirements of outdoor furniture that should be carefully thought over at the stage of designing. It deals in the first turn with the constructions for children playgrounds. The planners should deliberate the height of construction elements, the shape of the structures, sanitary conditions, surface texture and so forth. Similar precautionary measures should be taken in relation to other objects of urban furniture.
3) Functionality and life time of city furniture constructions should also be taken into account while planning street facilities. Overall dimensions of the element, its construction and materials used for its manufacture should be considered before the start of manufacture process. It is important to protect street furniture structures from the acts of vandalism, then it will serve for a long period of time.
4) And eventually we should refer to such criterion as universality. Street furniture equipment is a public ownership so it should be designed in such a way that every citizen could use it.
So these are the basic criteria that should be taken into account by urban furniture producers to supply high-grade and reliable equipment for urban decoration. The most frequent materials for urban furniture are steel, wood, concrete, stone. There is also so-called compound furniture equipment that is made of 2 or more types of materials. In opinion of specialists, such furniture represents the best variant of outdoor equipment since it is in line with all the mentioned criteria. |
