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As the value of public spaces comes into focus, this article shares seven case studies of street furniture being used to help improve community wellbeing. Both tactical pop-ups and permanent installations are featured below, with examples of projects that foster community engagement and measure social impact. Street Furniture Australia products have been tried-and-tested to activate spaces and deliver results. Select from our range to bring life, joy and comfort to your community. Case 1. Creating Millions of Smiles Woden Experiment was a six-month prototype installation by the ACT Government that aimed to bring life, joy and comfort to Canberra’s Woden Town Square. Brightly coloured seats and tables were configured in random positions to create a casual and welcoming vibe. Community interviews, observations and workshops were at the heart of this …

Street Furniture Australia is visiting the United States in February, with international sales representative Juanita Marlowe touring Los Angeles and San Francisco.The visit kicked off in the city of angels with a Lunch and Learn session at a leading landscape architecture practice, where the #BackyardExperiment 10-minute documentary film was received with interest. Screening of #BackyardExperiment. Juanita’s presentation. Each guest received a healthy lunch hamper from Lemonade, while hearing from Juanita about inspiring smart city and activation projects taking place in Australia, and the exciting range of products that can be exported to the US. The sales team is also looking forward to sharing these stories at the ASLA Annual Meeting in San Diego in November, after successfully debuting Aria at the 2018 conference and expo. Juanita could not resist taking a snap …

Street Furniture Australia is honoured to be named winner of the Built Environment category at the inaugural Australian Smart Cities Awards in October 2018. These are the country’s first awards recognising leadership, best practice and action to advance the smart cities movement, evaluated by a seven-person jury chaired by David Singleton AM. The winners were announced at Smart Cities Week in Sydney, organised by the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand. Street Furniture Australia received the Built Environment award for #BackyardExperiment, an eight-day activation of Garema Place, Canberra, which took place in October 2016. It was a small project that made a big impact. By adopting a people-first approach and quantifying the impact of design, the method of activation became an international case study. #BackyardExperiment was one of Australia’s first …

Street Furniture Australia recently received a 2018 Australian Smart Cities Award for white paper #BackyardExperiment. The project was a collaboration between Street Furniture Australia and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, with support from the ACT Government. The park was designed by Context. The judges describe the project as a “partnership driven and replicable approach to smart cities,” that quantifies the impact of street activation. Below is a project summary: The Numbers … Garema Place is a grey and underused area surrounded by cafe and shops in the heart of Canberra CBD. #BackyardExperiment brought colour, movable furniture, lighting and lawn to the plaza for eight days. Park designed by Context Landscape Architects. Street Furniture Australia set up three time-lapse cameras to capture data before and during activation. Weekdays and weekend days were compared. Data …

Come on our Urban Design PPN EXPO tour during the 2018 ASLA Meeting in Philadelphia and see how we’ve quantified the impact of design with activation projects in Australia. Earn PDH by joining this Professional Practice Network (PPN) tour on Sunday October 21, from 9.45am to 10.45am – go to PPN Live to register, only 30 places available. The Expo is located at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, from October 19-22, 2018. Many of us have seen the effects of great place design on a community’s social and mental health, and business prosperity. Most of your clients would value these effects, if they could be proven with hard data. You might have considered how smart city technologies can help. Join us to examine two Australian case studies that aim to quantify the impact of …

ABC Radio Canberra’s Adam Shirley chats with Street Furniture Australia’s June Boxsell about the #WodenExperiment Discovery Report release, and ideas for the project, on Mornings. The following is a transcript of the program, which aired on Thursday August 30, 2018. AS Town squares used to be the place where everything happened. The good, the bad, from markets to public punishment even. Whatever the drawcard, people would come. Can you picture a town square in Canberra, perhaps Civic or Woden. Does it have a good feel? Or is the vibe a little dodgy, deserted, even run down? Do let me know if your town square is alive and thriving. A six month experiment in Woden Town Square has begun. June Lee Boxsell is from Street Furniture Australia and is involved in …