Though everything currently seems different, in the long term rather than changing anything, Covid-19 will accelerate and magnify trends already in place, the well-known British architect writes for the Guardian.
Throughout history the crises of the day have hastened the arrival of the day’s solutions – fireproof buildings, sewage systems, green parks, the automobile, he writes.
We should not expect our future to be two-metre distancing – “The last major pandemic of 1918-20 created deserted city centres, face masks, lockdowns and quarantines. But it also heralded the social and cultural revolution of the 1920s with newly built gathering spaces: department stores, cinemas and stadiums.
“What might be the equivalent hallmarks of our coming age, after Covid-19?”
Image: Norman Foster’s illustration on the future of cities, to be exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Outdoor Dining in NYC Becomes Permanent:
The New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, has made the Open Restaurants Program, which allows restaurants in the city to extend seating onto streets, sidewalks and public spaces, permanent following the coronavirus pandemic.
First temporarily initiated in June to allow restaurants to continue doing business while adhering to social distancing restrictions, the programme will now be a year-round fixture.
The scheme includes provision for extending onto sidewalks and roadways, or onto adjacent outdoor spaces with neighbours consent, heating during winter and building tents.
Three or more restaurants on a street that is closed to traffic can also apply together to expand outdoors in another option known as Open Streets: Restaurants.
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
Did you catch these most-read case studies, furnishing tips, new product announcements and special industry events in your StreetChat updates in 2023? Each month our StreetChat enewsletter publishes new projects, products and trends from the public domain; subscribe to receive it in your inbox. 10. Which design firm can see Longhorn Cattle from their office window? 2 countries. 9 cities. 300 landscape architects. Street Furniture Australia and USA partner Spruce & Gander visited offices in Australia and Texas. There were key similarities and some notable standouts. 9. Jazz at The Mint: Product and Book Launch Sydney landscape architects gathered at the iconic Mint Courtyard to launch a design book by our founding directors Darrel Conybeare and Bill Morrison, and expansions to the Linea collection. 8. 2023 Good Cause Giveaway goes to …
Street Furniture Australia has designed and built prototype charging stands as part of a Transport for NSW program to deliver free phone chargers at 15 Sydney train stations. Developed by Street Furniture Australia’s inhouse industrial designers in collaboration with Transport for NSW, the prototypes offer wireless, USB-A and USB-C charging, and can power 7 devices at once. They were built at the Street Furniture Australia factory in Western Sydney. Two Power Spots are now installed at Liverpool and Campbelltown stations. The $1 million Power Spots Project rollout to 15 transport hubs including Bankstown, Hurstville, Lidcombe, Penrith, Wynyard, Central, Town Hall and Bondi Junction will be completed by late 2024. NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the Power Spots provide peace of mind: “In the modern world, our phones are our …
PARK(ing) Day: Don’t Stop at the Curb The international day of transforming car spots into parklets has inspired reflection this month on the value of resilient, equitable and inclusive streets – particularly during a pandemic, writes Carolina Samponaro for Lyft. Read about her observations of 2020 PARK(ing) Day. Image: Tulsa PARK(ing) Day, 2020, Project for Public Spaces. Gensler: The Pandemic May Accelerate 20-Minute Cities: Giving up the daily commute in favour of working from home may be a lasting effect of COVID-19 that leads to a push for greater service availability in local neighbourhoods, writes Ed Garsten for Forbes. International architectural, development and planning firm Gensler is focused on that sea change in how we go about our business, he writes, working with communities and automakers on how to make the …
Designing streets for kids: Released in August by the Global Designing Cities Initiative, “Designing Streets for Kids,” offers strategies and solutions to redesign urban streets and public spaces by focusing on the needs of kids and caregivers, with the goal of making streets beautiful, fun – and safe. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young people ages 5-29 globally, and traffic congestion and vehicles contribute to high levels of air pollution, which is responsible for the death of 127,000 children under the age of five each year, the guide’s authors said. Many of these deaths, they said, can be dramatically reduced through kid-friendly street design. Read the Forbes article, How to Make Streets Kid-Friendly by Tanya Mohn. Image: A street in Fortaleza, Brazil, designed according to ‘Designing Streets …
What happens to public space when everything moves outside? To create room for social distancing in the pandemic recovery period, restaurants, bars and cafe tables are spilling out onto city streets, writes Feargus O’Sullivan for Bloomberg CityLab – sometimes skipping past the sidewalk and into parking spots and vehicle lanes. “The movements of these private businesses into new spaces pose new challenges about who gets to occupy outside spaces that are increasingly in demand,” he says. “Reopened parks, one of the few place to freely and safely congregate during coronavirus, are frequently packed. Many streets already have sidewalks filled with lines of people waiting to enter stores enforcing a low customer capacity. Add a new range of table service businesses to this busy streetscape, and issues about who get priority …
