Parked Bench is a portable parklet in London, that it replaces two standard parallel car parking spaces (between 10m and 12 m in length), to provide urban greening, public seating, and air quality monitoring functions. I first came across the concept of the parklet a few months ago with the Sunset Parklet in San Francisco, so its nice to see yet another in the UK.
Designed by UK-based WMB Studio, ‘Parked bench’ features a singular sculptural seating element around which zones of planting and small pockets of public space occur and overlap, encouraging pedestrians to stop and gather. The resulting interwoven seating and planting provide a buffer zone to the busy road, and creates an organic extension of the pavement.
The materials used are low cost and off-the shelf, with the bench and base elements constructed entirely from standard scaffolding boards. The parklet also houses an air quality monitor that feeds real-time data to an app and website designed by Kings College London, forming part of their wider network of air quality data collection points within London.
This first parklet has been delivered as part of the Team London Bridge ‘Fresh Air Squares’ initiative, supported by the Transport for London Future Streets Incubator fund, with further versions due to be installed in the London Bridge area this year.
