Friday 31 May 2013

Pause Perches


Providing street furniture innovation with a community benefit

This was one of the elements in the Life and Cycle Project, a community improvement scheme in Newport, a district of Barnstaple in North Devon. It set out to encourage more people to walk to school enjoying the green areas on the way. It was funded by Sustrans and Devon County Council and finished a couple of years ago.





























The Appledore shipyard who are building the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers wanted to find more local apprentices to train as shipbuilders but to our surprise local young people didn't know there are ships being built or that they could learn such an important skilled trade locally.
We worked with Babcock Marine and their existing apprentices to show off these skills in the heart of a key recruitment area where unemployment contributed to the social problems we hoped to improve.

Model making and full size mocking up helped refine the concept, the ergonomics being difficult to perfect. Wanting to make the most of the shipbuilding skills which were on the doorstep at Appledore.


































Bending the thick P plate, the stock material of modern ship building, with huge hydraulic machinery was fantastic to see.

The seating and skirt material is made from waste mining conveyor belt which is very tough and fireproof. Cut with a computer controlled water jet machine which can handle the complex interpretive graphics.


A wooden version was also made by Keith Mott using steam bending on tapered planks to achieve the complex curves.









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