BOTTON + GARDINER WINS WESTERN SYDNEY PARKLANDS COMPETITION
01 Oct 2009
botton + gardiner will supply a suite of park and public space furniture for the Western Sydney Parklands after winning a competition.
The newly formed Western Sydney Parklands is not a small project. The area covers 5,280 hectares, and the Parklands is a vast conservation, lifestyle and recreation area that stretches for 27km, from Quakers Hill in the north to Leppington in the south. In August botton + gardiner’s submission for the Parklands furniture design competition was selected from proposals by a number of invited design companies, as the suite of park and public space furniture for the Western Sydney Parklands.
The furniture suite is purposely designed to integrate the existing elements of the Parklands as a thread to form a visual connection across the Parklands. The furniture suite consists of seats, picnic settings, backless benches, bike racks, bubblers and bollards. Western Sydney Parklands is used by many people, each with different needs and with this in mind the furniture has been designed with many strong features such as wheel chair access, larger picnic tables, bubblers which facilitate the filling of water bottles and even a water bowl for dogs.
Another key area within the design is a focus on sustainable development, ensuring minimisation of material wastage and using highly durable materials such as Duraslat, a recycled hardwood and plastic composite with a 25 year warranty against structural failure. The manufacture and installation of the selected park furniture is proposed to commence later this year and will continue for a number of years.