Tag Archives: public furniture

3D technologies transformed plastic waste into city benches to beautify concrete barriers

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USE is an experimental furniture piece built from plastic waste for the small town of Lucca to operate as a second skin for New Jersey concrete barriers as well as a city bench.

R3direct uses innovative 3D technologies to produce a collection of different items, like furniture and public infrastructure, from waste. Currently, 55% of the plastic coming from urban waste is destined for thermo-valorization or dumped in landfills. R3direct gathers plastic waste from that portion of the main supply to use for their 3D-printed products.

Designer: R3direct & Giulia del Grande

Using large-format 3D printers, R3direct is dedicated to high commercial value applications like sculptures, functional prototypes, and public or private furniture objects. Their latest experimental furniture piece is dubbed USE, which stands for ‘Urban Safety Every day.’ USE primarily functions as a ‘second skin’ for New Jersey barriers and takes the shape of a city bench for residents and tourists to enjoy.

Made from post-consumer plastics, R3direct remains committed to printing durable and bespoke objects for private and public purposes. Using innovative 3D and parametric technologies, “The recycled plastic necessary for the realization of USE,” the R3direct team explains, “comes entirely from the recycling of polylaminate beverage cartons carried out by the company Lucart, [a] world leader in the production of paper and tissue.”

Dotting the streets of the small city of Lucca, while Lucart carried out the recycling and processing of the plastic, R3direct collected the plastic waste from the re-use of about 3,300 TetraPak® cartons. The final compositional makeup of USE is 75% of FiberPack®, a material obtained from recycled cellulose fibers used in beverage cartons, and the remaining 25% is made of polyethylene and aluminum, two components used as raw, secondary materials to produce the module.

Working closely with Giulia del Grande, the USE project originates from the designer’s thesis, which explores, “the issue linked to the design of spaces to prevent the sense of fear in people who live in cities.” Calming the chaos and busy nature of cities, public furniture like benches and water fountains are incorporated into the fabric of the city to function as aesthetically pleasing home bases for urban residents and tourists.

Speaking to this, the team at R3direct notes, “Urban furniture intends to transform the concrete barriers commonly used during events or in a fixed manner to protect strategic places in the city, making them aesthetically pleasing and equipping them with various functions useful to the citizen.”

The post 3D technologies transformed plastic waste into city benches to beautify concrete barriers first appeared on Yanko Design.

This interactive bench design features movable wooden elements that mimic a kinetic wave!

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Surf Bench is an interactive bench designed for waiting room areas and to teach us about physics, is made from dozens of movable wooden and steel elements that mimic the flow of a kinetic wave.

When you’re stuck in a waiting room and left to your own devices, you make your own fun. Whether that means endlessly scrolling through Twitter, counting the tiles on the floor, or finding how far back you can lean in your chair, waiting rooms test your imagination until time moves faster or your name is called. With a single goal of making life around us (and waiting rooms) more pleasant, South German designer Kim André Lange created Surf Bench, a piece of interactive waiting room furniture that’s designed to bring people together, keep us busy, and teach us about physics in the meantime.

Designed to appear almost like a spinal cord, Surf Bench is comprised of moving wood and steel elements that change shape when interacted with to mimic the flow of a kinetic wave. When someone sits down on Surf Bench, their weight sends a ripple effect through the length of the bench, becoming a sort of life-size fidget spinner, one of those handheld devices uses to stave off looming anxiety. Sitting down on Surf Bench, users will notice the bench’s potential to occupy our senses, attention, and tactile urges.

When we’re stuck in waiting rooms, our hands land on whatever might provide some stimulation. Expressing this human tendency in conjunction with the design of Surf Bench, Kim André Lange notes, “The Surf Bench Project focuses on humans in public waiting areas – places where people experience time. By observing these places a strong visible emotion sticks out: nervosity…By analyzing present waiting areas one object is found in most of them: the waiting bench. An object without any characteristics helping us get through that nervous time in between.”

Sending kinetic waves down the entire length of Surf Bench not only keeps our minds occupied, but educates us on the physics behind it. Providing a tactile experience that also serves to educate the public on physics, Surf Bench will keep us entertained and might even help us forget we’re waiting for something in the first place.

Designer: Kim André Lange

These smart city furniture uses solar panels, creating WiFi hotspots + charging outlets for the urban environment!

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Industries across the globe are steadily moving toward a smart future. A handful of public schools in Hungary went so far as to host a competition called “Smart School,” which gave designers creative freedom to conceptualize smart public furniture for schoolyards and city centers. For Smart School, Hello Wood, an architecture and design studio, designed and created the Fluid Cube and City Snake, two pieces of smart public furniture currently located in Hungary’s schoolyards.

Designed for use by the public, both the Fluid Cube and the City Snake primarily function as city benches with the same technical attributes. The Fluid Cube is a 9 cubic meter cube structure that partially encloses two parallel benches with an overhead roof for shelter during bad weather. The City Snake, a 7.5-meter outdoor bench that curves and bends to provide unique sitting options to travelers looking for a bit of respite. While the two structures provide seating for the public, they also come equipped with solar panels that generate power for some of the structure’s more technical features. Raised parts of the City Snake accommodates traditional solar panels, while solar cells are overlaid on the Fluid Cube’s glass roof. The solar panels on both of the structures yield power to use the built-in USB charging outlets, the WiFi hotspots, as well as the benches’ lighting systems.

Based in the bustling city of Budapest, Hello Wood designs and builds site-specific, public installations almost entirely from wood. City centers are known for travelers, commuters, busy workdays, and long walks. With smart technology outfitting most modern appliances and furniture, public furniture is getting revamped with smart features. Since a charger and WiFi are almost always needed throughout the day, Hungary’s smart, public furniture has both.

Designer: Hello Wood

The Fluid Cube’s roof provides a sheltered space for city-goers caught in the rain.

Featuring two parallel benches, the Fluid Cube primarily functions as a meeting place for sitting.

The Fluid Cube was almost entirely constructed from sustainably harvested wood.

Solar panels line the Fluid Cube’s roof to provide power for WiFi and the bench’s charging outlets.

The City Snake appears as more of a traditional city bench, with raised edges and panels for reclined sitting.

The City Snake powers up its WiFi hotspot and charging outlets from its solar panel.