Beyond Basic Benching: Other Uses for Park Furniture
05/12/2011
Parks are not the only places that can use outdoor furniture. Private schools or university and college campuses are often famous for their landscaping and architecture, and often make use of outdoor seating to provide both students and guests with places to sit and view their surroundings. Special courtyards are sometimes built which have backless benches, providing low profile but comfortable outdoor seating. Normal benches with backs are more often used to line walkways up to entrances or areas of interest.
City and town governments also represent one of the biggest users of park benches. One popular option often used is wood imitation benches made from recycled plastic, which are incredibly weather resistant so represent an ideal low maintenance investment for smaller communities or institutions which have limited budgets so cannot afford to purchase replacements every year.
More modern metal bench styles are commonly seen on pavement corners, government building courtyards, bus stations and similar areas. The range of custom colours offered by many manufacturers can be designed to match anything from a traditional building’s historic architecture to a unique building’s structural design.
Libraries and museums often make use of park benches in custom colours in order to match stone, granite and brickwork areas undergoing renovation. Again plastic models which do not look like plastic are popular as they combine long term durability with minimal maintenance as they do not require regular treatment or coatings in order to maintain their appearance.
Other facilities making use of outdoor benches include banks, military bases and churches. Bench seating for these places ranges from basic placement to highly customised and tailored solutions designed to enhance the overall visitor experience. Atriums, lobbies, courtyards and shaded spaces are just a few of the places where bench—style seating can be found.
Vandal resistance benches and signs are available from many manufacturers, which guarantees a long-term investment that cannot be easily wrecked by less savoury members of the public. The thermoplastic coatings included on these vandal-resistant products are remarkably resistant to defacing and damage, and very easily and cheaply repairable in the rare cases where they are affected.
As well as seating space, outdoor furnishings such as benches can provide an aesthetic compliment to the surroundings in general as well as reinforcing brand presence through an area with customised display of logos, colour schemes etc. Alternatively, some places choose to embrace a more natural approach and choose entirely natural-looking colour schemes and materials in order to add to the “outdoor park” feel of an area.
Outdoor furniture can be mounted by bolting directly onto path surfaces or otherwise fasted to the ground using leg extensions and concrete embedding in order to prevent theft and discourage vandalism. Portable models can also be used both inside and out and moved around according to the seasons in order to optimise the visitor’s experience.
UK manufacturer Fitzpatrick Woolmer has some excellent eco-friendly signage and park furniture ideas, including recycled plastic signs and their groundbreaking vandal-resistant n-viro panels range. You can visit Fitzpatrick Woolmer for more creative outdoor solutions at www.fwdp.co.uk.
