28 September 2021 · By Merlin Fulcher

Source:  Image by Shutterstock

An international ideas contest is being held for new precast concrete picnic bench solutions [Deadline: 1 November 2021]

The free-to-enter competition invites students and young professionals up to 30 years old to draw up ‘fresh, eco, new, open, and inclusive’ concepts for new urban street furniture suitable for picnics featuring a table, bench, and a litter bin.

The anonymous call for concepts – backed by Belgian precast concrete company Urbastyle – aims to identify a range of new outdoor picnic furniture solutions harnessing precast concrete. Three winners will receive cash prizes and see their concepts prototyped.

According to the brief: ‘Candidates in the field of architecture, design, landscape, urban planning, engineering, are invited to challenge themselves, discover precast architectural concrete, and design precast concrete elements in relation with theme of picnic and specifically the trio: table-bench-trashcan.

‘Candidates are invited to think openly about the picnics of tomorrow – they could be alone or in couple, with family, with pets, or wild animals. What will be the food, drinks on the table? And how will they include people with temporary or permanent physical or cognitive disabilities? Picnics can be entertaining, relaxing or perhaps something inviting us to eat and go and maybe keep the place tidy. Tomorrow may not be the same as today.’

Designed for impromptu outdoor dining, picnic tables traditionally feature a rectangular eating surface supported by an A-frame structure. Concrete picnic tables and heavier making them harder to move while also being more expensive and more durable. Some of the earliest examples of concrete picnic furniture date from the USA’s New Deal when unemployed workers helped create a series of national parks in the 1930s.

The competition seeks proposals for innovative picnic furniture solutions using concrete and other materials while weighing no heavier than 3,000Kg. Concepts will be judged on their ‘uniqueness of perspective and originality of solution’ with consideration also given to deliverability and respect for the environment.

Judges will include Jan Laroy, Urbastyle co-founder and co-director; Arnaud Bozzini, director of the Design Museum Brussels; Julie Almau Gonzalez, director of the Atomium in Brussels; and Ian Rose, senior associate landscape architect at Cracknell in Dubai.

Submissions must be in English and may include up to two A3-sized presentation boards. The overall winner, to be announced late October, will receive a €2,000 prize while a second prize of €1,200 and third prize of €800 will also be awarded.

The deadline for applications is midday, 1 November.

Visit the competition website for more information

Tags competition Concrete Landscape Public realm street furniture

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