What happens when you bring together the design experience of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol -- winner of the 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Landscape Architecture -- and Kalamazoo’s Landscape Forms? Furniture for public places called UrbanEdge.
The latest offering from
Landscape Forms was created to address demands for less formal public spaces, some driven by the portability of technology that lets people work or connect with others anywhere and at anytime, often escaping to the outdoors. The furniture helps urban designers create places for resting, reflecting, meeting and greeting others, the company says.
It also takes dead spaces and orients them in a way that connects those spaces to the larger urban fabric as part of a movement in medium to large urban areas to turn alleys and nooks into actively used spaces.
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol took its inspiration for the furniture from the way social interactions take place in all kinds of spaces, such as lunchrooms, living rooms, transit stops and playgrounds.
The UrbanEdge set of furniture for public spaces includes a trellis, railing, planter, small seat, large seat, bar height seat, and table. They all have names, such as Ollie for the small seat, Sophie for the large seat and Bernie for the bar height seat. The furniture settings are built to endure under conditions of heavy urban use and create a sense of space in urban space that are not being fully used.
The planters, trellis and railing frame the space to signal a destination or protected rest stop -- like a frame around a picture. Designers see it being used to create curbside transit stops and "eddies" along sidewalks where people step in and out of the flow. Or it may be used to develop niches and focused social settings within larger open spaces. The collection may be configured in many ways to work within a space, providing pockets or settings where people can linger.
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, founded by partners Kathryn Gustafson, Jennifer Guthrie, and Shannon Nichol, is known for projects that express sculptural qualities that draw context from the physical and cultural landscape of a project site and are developed by designers with diverse backgrounds in landscape, architecture, engineering, graphics, ecology and other sciences.
Landscape Forms collaborates with renowned industrial designers and consultants in landscape architecture, and architects to design and develop integrated collections of products that address emerging needs and help create a sense of place.
Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave Media
Source: Janis Etzcorn, Landscape Forms
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