It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.
William H Whyte, The Design of Spaces.
Look at this; a park bench just outside Leeds city centre. A recent addition – so recent the tag is still attached. What do you think?
Let’s not talk about aesthetics for now – though I could fling a Phillipe Stark juicer in Leeds city centre and have the eye out of a dozen designers who could do better – and let’s concentrate on the purpose. This is a park bench. It’s for sitting on and watching the world go by.
Would you want to spend time here?
Can you imagine this happening?
I took these 2 photos less than a minute away; benches on a busy path overlooking the ring road!
More importantly, would you welcome a random stranger beside you here?
New seating in Lovell Park. A design classic @philkirby #leeds pic.twitter.com/p8PF06WjSA
— Rob Greenland (@TheSocBiz) December 8, 2014
Obviously sat on the other side of that central Checkpoint Charlie – wouldn’t want to get carried away with conviviality now would we! Would it encourage you to engage in friendly conversation, or even benign acknowledgement that you are sharing a moment in the city?
On this bench would you feel you were in the best city?
Would you think this was in a place that made everyone – not just the privileged in their city centre penthouses – feel included, important, part of the city’s story?
I don’t know for sure.
My first impression is that these things are mean, miserable and misanthropic, and I’d put a bet on that they were shunned in favour of the more sociable seating in a worse location. And if anyone is willing to pay my bar bill at The Reliance I’d be happy to spend a week or two watching what goes on, doing something like this…
These are austere times, surely we need to know that public money is spent on public space that works, not wasted on stuff that doesn’t?