What is your first impression of this bench?

[Andrew Spiering]

This is the Civil Bench by Forms+Surfaces.  What’s your first impression?

 

[Mandy]

I think…how will this meet ADA in SF.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

contrived. forced. disconnect between materials. If you’re going to have a back rest, have a back rest. People naturally dictate their “personal space without having dividers. Without knowing the context of the bench, I don’t understand the need to have alternating seating orientations. feels awkward.

not to be a total downer, it does look difficult to skate (skateboard), except for the bars on the end, those would be perfect for rail slides…

[Rob Halpern]

First impression:

 

ow!

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

It will be great once they get all the flower pots on it and put some seating around it.

[Andrew Spiering]

Funny.  I thought the same thing about the rail slide.

[Boilerplater]

It was designed to keep homeless people from snoozing.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I think it was designed to make homeless people go home!

[Boilerplater]

Home to where?

[Jason T. Radice]

 

I’d have to see the scale of it, but it looks extraordinarily uncomfortable, and the bars on the back are just at the right height to create pain in the lower back trying to avoid them to get maximum ass-to-seat contact on what looks to be a very narrow bench. I looked at the specs online, and the total depth is 16, not the seat, but from outside of the frame to ourside of the frame. So the seat is 12″? Geez. If you want to go double sided, use a double-wide backless bench! And those seat edges look wicked sharp to me.

[Dennis Wade Corry]

It is purposely designed to be uncomfortable so its function is for short usage periods. The tubular steel rails seperate users. All those perforations imply a need for a quick draining surface. The design is very “institutional”. The obvious principal use seems as a shower seat for geratric inmates in a prison. 

[Zach Watson]

First thought – Uncomfortable

 

Second thought – why not give people the ability to sit how and where they want, we should not force people to sit specific ways because of the design.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Making it “work” could be as simple as using stainless for the seat and rolling the edge of the seat to match the radius of the tubing. Another option would be using 1″ boxed tubing, stacked two together, fabricated at 90* angles instead of bends to match the aesthetic of the existing seat. You could also create short backs for each section, stacking lengths of the same tubing 7 high.

If it’s used in L.A. or Phoenix stainless will cook people. The seat looks hot too… Powder coating it in two shades of desert camo would be cooler (temperature wise) and would look groovy too, like, light gray for the seat and medium tan for the rail…

[Jason T. Radice]

Oh, by the way, that is actually THREE benches put end to end.

[Trace One]

Help, I got caught between bars and seat in freak accident while reaching for a hanky- chest being compressed – call out the Fire Department, bring a blow – torch!

 

 

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