In cities the world over, city design is more and more oriented round stopping folks from resting. Particulars like seats with bisecting railings, ledges with embedded spikes, and railings instead of benches are just some ways in which “hostile architecture”—or structure that makes public areas much less accessible, particularly to unhoused folks—exhibits up in metropolis landscapes.
Now, a design agency in San Francisco desires to flip that narrative on its head by doing the precise reverse: constructing a four-mile-long bench.
The idea, created by the agency Sitelab Urban Studio, is one among six winners of “Market Street Reimagined,” a global name for design proposals to rejuvenate San Francisco’s downtown Market Road. In keeping with Laura Crescimano, cofounder and principal of Sitelab, the agency beforehand recognized “the stunning lack of seating downtown” via a undertaking known as the Downtown San Francisco Public Realm Action Plan, an effort geared toward bringing city exercise again to the town’s monetary district post-pandemic. So, when the chance to rethink Market Road’s design got here up, her staff realized that there may be a deceptively easy resolution.
“In current initiatives, we’ve got seen the elimination of fastened benches and an general choice for movable seating over fastened seating—it’s cheaper, may be saved in a single day, and moved round,” Crescimano says. “These developments replicate a broader sample of designing out relaxation and permanence, which is why we imagine daring interventions—like our 4-Mile Bench proposal—are wanted to reframe seating as important civic infrastructure.”
A ten,000-seat bench
The proposal is actually what it appears like: a 4-mile-long, vivid yellow bench that will make one massive loop round Market Road, providing a whopping 10,000 seats for residents and vacationers. Given the dimensions of the undertaking and the enterprise of the road, Crescimano says, the concept is constructed with modularity in thoughts, utilizing an off-the-shelf system provided by the corporate Landscape Forms that may simply be constructed and maintained segment-by-segment.
Market Road’s present constraints really made means for among the bench’s extra attention-grabbing options. To keep away from remodeling infrastructure like indicators, timber, and lightposts, the bench is imagined as a playfully curving line weaving via and round these obstacles. And, to make the seating as interactive as potential, Sitelab added customized elements like swings, tables, and loops that periodically interrupt the bench’s circulation.
“It’s a spectacle meant to attract in guests from locals to vacationers—a recognizable, Instagrammable second,” Crescimano says. “It’s also at a scale to be a platform and backdrop for main occasions, from the Pleasure parade, to protests, to celebrating the Warriors or Giants wins. In distinction to previous approaches that eliminated seating to discourage sure behaviors, this proposal invitations everybody in and encourages extra foot site visitors.”
Whereas the 4-Mile Bench remains to be on the proposal part, Crescimano says Sitelab has already acquired curiosity on a possible pilot undertaking. To make the bench a actuality, she provides, the staff’s subsequent steps would come with assembly with metropolis officers and property homeowners to refine the design and figuring out a number of blocks alongside Market Road as a place to begin. She sees the 4-Mile Bench as an idea that “reimagines Market Road from a spot of shortage to one among abundance,” selecting to lean into the optimistic quite than designing to mitigate danger.
“We would like this bench to be a spot for everybody—it’s not about proscribing how folks use it,” Crescimano says. “The truth of homelessness is advanced and ever-present, and as a substitute of designing from a spot of exclusion, we’re hoping to increase the concept of who our streets can serve. We began our follow in San Francisco, and that spirit of openness is what we’ve at all times beloved concerning the metropolis.”
