Kerava is a town of just over 30,000 near Helsinki in Finland. A few weeks ago, colourful urban furniture by Polish designers was placed there. The action was organised with the help of Gdynia’s Traffic Design team.
The Traffic Design Association has been changing the landscape of Gdynia for years. It helps design the elevations of buildings and takes care of urban details – elements of small architecture. We have written about the effects of Traffic Design’s work on many occasions, the articles can be found HERE.
The team’s most recent realisation is a “cold-resistant” set of urban furniture for Kerava. The furniture is seating, the design of which is based on the Parkly seating system. The Traffic Design team designed the accessory set to encourage young people to also use public spaces on cold and dark days.
The accessories that decorated the furniture are patterned pieces whose design was developed based on a co-design workshop with students from the local high school. The participants analysed the identity of the city and looked for inspiration. One of these was Kerava’s long-standing circus tradition, which Renia Maj referred to in her design.
For us, this was a completely new experience of joint conceptual and design work with designers from Finland. The additions were made in Poland by Mapalu and KB Cut, assembled by our indomitable team of contractors and transported to Finland, where they were re-fitted to the previously manufactured Parkly modules, explains the Traffic Design team.
The assembly of the furniture took place in extreme conditions – 10 degrees Celsius. The colourful furniture aroused interest, and a large group of workshop participants took part in the assembly work.
The main element of the set is a large module with a canopy providing shelter from the wind, to which the targets for aiming snowballs are attached. There are also bicycle racks to encourage the use of this mode of transport regardless of the season.
The system also takes into account the existing urban infrastructure: one of the modules is located on the illuminated terrace of the city library, where users can receive warm drinks and blankets. A small piece of furniture has been placed under the city’s lamppost, making use of the existing lighting after dark (the sun sets here just after 3 p.m. in December, as it does in Poland).
photo by Vesa Laitinen
source: Traffic Design
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