A Sense of Place

The project brief challenges us to create an innovative public furniture element that helps gives the public space a “sense of place” and encourages the community to proudly use the area with the fellow neighbours. The way I tried to encourage the community to use the space was through the use of music, which I have incorporated in my furniture design in the form of simple musical instruments. Music has the ability to bring people together no matter what language they speak, which is why my design concept will encourage the public to proudly use the space with their neighbours, even if they are strangers. In the suburb the site is located in (Lakemba) there are a lot of different people from different backgrounds and from these cultural backgrounds all have music embedded in the culture.

My design features two very simple musical instruments, which are the tubulum (pvc pipe instrument made famous by the Blue Man Group) and congas (a percussive instrument). These two instruments a very easy to play which is perfect for public use because not everyone is a musician. The main way I intend my design to be used is that the public could use my bench design to socialise and have a bit of a jam session with others in the community. The design of the bench itself will suit all types of people and will be very comfortable to sit on due to the height of the bench. The bench is also going to be hollow. This is so that the built in musical instruments can be amplified for a louder and clearer noise.

The bench itself is going to be made from polypropylene, which is suitable because it is impact and wear resistant and also ultraviolet resistant which means it will withstand the outdoor conditions. The way the bench is manufactured is by rotational moulding. Rotational moulding is perfect for the bench because it is completely hollow and the bench could be moulded in a single piece. But there will also be some other manufacturing processes, such as trimming of excess plastic and fitting the pipes for the tubulum.