Stunning stainless steel creations by ASSDA Member Draffin Street Furniture have delivered the contemporary edge required by the rising urban metropolis of Ringwood, Victoria.
Working in collaboration with a team of urban architects and designers, Draffin Street Furniture crafted a suite of custom urban street furniture for the Eastland Shopping Centre in Ringwood.
The Eastland Shopping Centre is located within a major transport network and services a large area of Melbourne’s eastern growth corridor. The integration of sustainable development within Ringwood is creating a sought after urban destination with a contemporary lifestyle. As such, its development is a consciously considered endeavour that is geared to meet the specific needs of its growing population.
Funded by Maroondah City Council, landscape architectural firm Urban Initiatives (UI) was commissioned to generate a design vocabulary that would establish a consistent suite of street furniture and treatments that relate to the proposed scale and vision for Ringwood. UI approached industrial furniture designer Andrew Gibbs to design a distinctive suite of street furniture and urban infrastructure that would meet his vision.
Australian Native Landscapes (ANL) who was commissioned by UI to construct the project, including acquiring and installing the furniture elements for the Ringwood development, contacted Draffin Street Furniture to bring Andrew’s design concepts to life.
Draffin Street Furniture worked in collaboration with Andrew to develop his unique furniture designs and generate physical manifestations that met the design brief. Draffin was able to produce an amazing result within a difficult timeframe, constructing an innovative and unique collection of urban infrastructure from his very complex and technical designs.
Comprised of a series of seat benches, both backed and backless, bicycle racks, tree surrounds and waste receptacle surrounds, the Ringwood furniture suite is constructed primarily of grade 316 stainless steel.
Using stainless steel plate ranging from 3mm to 6mm thick and 100x10mm flat bar supplied by ASSDA Sponsors Dalsteel Metals and Outokumpu, Draffin Street Furniture fabricated the custom-made furniture suite and performed the mechanical finishing in-house to Ra<0.5. The furniture was further pickled, passivated and electropolished by ASSDA Member MME Surface Finishing to ensure maximum protection against corrosion in a dense metropolis area.
Draffin Street Furniture’s Director Ian Draffin said the vast majority of street furniture and other public urban infrastructure going into the Melbourne CBD area is now trending towards stainless steel as a default specification. While there is a high capital cost initially, the benefits of using stainless steel is unmatched in its material performance and reduction in ongoing maintenance and life-cycle costs.
Ensuring sleek, modern aesthetics as well as durability, the choice of stainless steel ensures innovative urban infrastructure will remain functional and attractive for years to come.
This is an abridged version of a story that first appeared in Outdoor Design Source and later featured in Australian Stainless Magazine Issue 58 (Summer 2016/17).
