Urban Furniture: Protectors from Breakage |
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There is no the most reliable way to protect urban furniture from acts of vandalism. In any society there is somebody who would like to try the furniture for durability. That is why in designing the elements engineers have to stick to a number of requirements.
First, all the elements have to be stable and it has to be difficult to move them from their places. Some manufacturers found the easiest way out of this situation: they offer to fasten architectural landscape elements to the underlying surface with screws or to deepen the legs into the ground. Second, the surface of each detail must be damage-resistant to maximum degree. First of all it refers to the possibility of inflammation or breaking. With this purpose we impregnate wooden elements with steep that provides them with higher longevity (detailed information you will find at Philosophy/Unbreakability). And last, but not least: all the stable and even surfaces attract young people who go in for extreme sports (skate boarding, roller skating). The skating and load over the furniture elements result in their early breakage. To provide protection from extreme sportsmen some manufacturers (for instance, Street Furniture NZ) offer metal elements that prevent the sportsmen from free skating along the surface of benches. They are fastened to the details and provide them with enough protection. As we have already mentioned, there is no universal protection. But you can systematically renew and reconstruct the furniture, wash and clean it or substitute the damaged elements. You can see our unique programme of furniture reconstruction. But even our strict requirements to cleanness of elements cannot at times resist the creative approach to furniture design and some masterpieces of youth creativity remain untouched (see picture below).
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