Retrofitting a Space with Modular Street Furniture
It’s no secret that the most environmentally friendly installation is one that doesn’t require significant changes to the existing landscape. This is why retrofitting a space with modular street furniture is an ideal way of lessening that impact and reducing the overall carbon output. Leaving the space and terrain alone provides challenges and opportunities in equal measure and can force a level of creativity that really helps an installation transcend, given that the right tools are available.
Square peg, round hole?
There are potential difficulties in inserting standard street furniture if the layout of a given space isn’t favourable, for example, tight corridors or oddly shaped boundaries. This also applies to existing features like statues, memorials, fountains, and anything that it’s preferable to leave in situ. The normal responses to this difficulty are to search for furniture that will fit perfectly into a set group of dimensions or incur the cost of bespoke furniture. The time taken to go through these processes extends project delivery timelines and increases costs, particularly in the case of bespoke street furniture.
The solution to these issues is an off-the-shelf one with all the perks and benefits that having a bespoke set of furniture provides, modular street furniture. Modular street furniture allows for a completely custom look with ready availability. Once the installation area is calculated the furniture can be simply added as a package with individual sections that can be chosen to fill out and complement that space. This includes straight and radiused pieces to create a flowing bench or planter, ideal for use to create a border around trees and planters.
The benefits of modular street furniture
Modular street furniture has many benefits even outside of the bespoke levels of customisation, which further help cement its status as a prime eco-friendly option.
Fast and Easy Assembly
As the sections are prebuilt, they can quite simply be attached to each other and the surface beneath. There’s no need to assemble the entire piece from scratch on-site as they can be shipped out as complete modules. This limits the need for an excessive amount of labour and time to get the furniture in situ.
Efficient Space Usage
Due to the compact nature and interconnecting pieces of modular street furniture, it ensures that no space is wasted. Planters and table sections can link in between seating sections creating a flowing installation, as illustrated below with our Cranleigh range of modular steel seating.
Limitless scalability
Once installed the site can be revisited at a later date to add more furniture sections and to adapt it for any changes needed. If that location sees more footfall, modular furniture allows for expansion using more modules that can be connected ad-hoc. The same goes for modifying the space to reduce the number of sections.
Cost-effective
Modular street furniture is incredibly cost-effective due to its modular nature, it’s an off-the-shelf product with a streamlined efficient production. This efficiency in production and manufacturing means it’s light on the wallet and much kinder to the environment with less wastage. Adding to the cost efficiency is the ability to replace individual sections should they become damaged beyond reasonable repair. They can be easily swapped out with an exact copy and the furniture can be put back into action in no time at all.
Retrofitting for the environment
Harnessing modular street furniture and retrofitting an area is a great way of maximising available eco-friendly tools and techniques. Modular street furniture itself is a great way of including nature in an installation using planters containing wildlife-friendly plants, flowers, and shrubbery. They can be used to border a large planter or contain individual planters in their configuration.
Our social areas are getting greener and modular furniture is a tool that’s leading the way in making that happen with a creative and interesting design language entirely suited to the modern era. It creates an opportunity to turn boring concrete deserts into sprawling communal areas filled with greenery and life, improving air quality and aesthetics, while preventing the need for a heavy transformation. It’s very easy to select a configuration that will both work and thrive in areas of any size or shape and turn them into a comfortable, pleasant place to be.