Flexible design principles Street furniture design for transforming environments, diverse users, changing needs and dynamic interactions

This paper aims to propose a set of flexible design principles for enhancing the flexibility of street furniture to deal with the diverse and changing urban environment. Flexibility is an important but less considered element of public design (otherwise called public environment and facility design), especially in regard to the street furniture that is encountered in everyday life. Taking Hong Kong as a case study, this paper gives an overview of the concepts of flexibility and flexible design, and identifies the current limitations and problems of the current street furniture design practices with respect to the diverse and changing urban environment. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a review of the current literature and relevant documentation, interviews with government officers and different groups of users (including those with special needs), and field observations in Hong Kong’s urban areas over a period of four years, the policies relating to street furniture design in Hong Kong and its management and implementation were evaluated. Findings – The results indicate that the current street furniture in Hong Kong is unable to adapt to or resist changes, can easily cause safety and management problems and is not adaptable to new developments. This paper proposes six principles for the flexible design of street furniture, namely, custom in use, multifunctional use, responds effectively to changing circumstances, easily and conveniently managed, universal in use and sustainable in use. Research limitations/implications – It is difficult to understand the diverse needs and preferences of different users in urban environments. The findings in this paper are based on intensive field work and broad industry experience. To deal with the rapid and ongoing urban change, this paper recommends a further long-term and in-depth study of street furniture. Practical implications – Based on the findings, this paper proposes six flexible design principles for designing street furniture that is sufficiently flexible to meet the rapid and ongoing urban change and diverse users’ needs.

The authors acknowledge the research grants provided by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s General Research Grants (RGC Ref: 546209) and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. They also thank Prof Julian Beinart and Prof. Tunney Lee for their valuable comments to Prof Siu (author) during the final stage of the preparation of this paper at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2013-2014). They also thank the Editor and reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions for the revision of the paper.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-2772.htm

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Received 28 February 2014 Revised 28 April 2014 26 May 2014 Accepted 29 May 2014

Facilities Vol. 33 No. 9/10, 2015 pp. 588-621 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0263-2772 DOI 10.1108/F-02-2014-0021

Social implications – Different societies and urban areas faced different types and levels of changes. Therefore, a flexible approach to street furniture design is important and necessary. Originality/value – The findings of this paper and the proposed six flexible design principles can provide insight and direction for government officials, design and planning professionals, developers, utility and management companies and communities on how to embed public design (i.e. policy, implementation and management) in the future.

Keywords Flexibility, Public design, Public facilities, Transforming environments, Urban changes

Paper type Research paper

Introduction When public facilities (such as open spaces, buildings, streets and a wide variety of street furniture) provide adequate services and utilities to meet the needs of the community, they make a city functional, beautiful and liveable. A number of recent studies have examined the location, construction, operation and management of public facilities (Tsou et al., 2005; Yeh and Chow, 1996; Yi and Komatsu, 2010). However, these studies primarily focus on city planning, architecture and landscape design and tend to neglect the issue of street-level public facilities (e.g. bench seats, rubbish bins, lights, traffic lights, bollards, barriers, emergency facilities and signs). Moreover, although numerous studies claim to take the needs of “users” into consideration, little research has focused specifically on users’ diverse and changing needs.

At the user level, the design, installation and maintenance of urban street furniture are important factors, as people tend to interact with these public facilities in their daily lives. As stated in the classic publication by the Design Council and the Royal Town Planning Institute (1979, p. 5), “Streets are essential parts of people’s living space […] Poorly designed environment, including street furniture, can be a nightmare for residents and visitors”. In contrast, well-planned and designed street furniture can provide important services and essential utilities that help to maintain and develop the street life in residential areas. Furthermore, as Lillebye (2001, p. 18) has argued:

A well-considered layout of street furniture is not only a condition of achieving public arenas of high aesthetic quality, but also of promoting a positive social use of the common space.

In addition, street furniture not only provides physiological satisfaction for city users, but also fulfils their social, cultural, psychological and ideological needs (Lee and Chan, 2008; Siu, 2007). For these reasons, street furniture needs to be included in the field of public design to make communities more liveable for citizens (Siu, 2009).

In adapting to the demands of social change, the streetscape has become increasingly varied and multifunctional (Bain et al., 2012). For example, in addition to meeting transportation needs, streets are frequently used as social spaces for meeting and gathering and for engaging in commercial, cultural and political activities. At the same time, the design of street furniture has become more diverse to cater for the increasing variety of social activities. Even so, the existing furniture has usually been designed for a particular function and for the needs of a particular period. Accordingly, much of today’s street furniture is difficult to modify and is unable to effectively respond to the challenges of spatial and temporal change, and the changing needs of the users.

First, the inability to adapt to spatial change simply means that the street furniture is based on inflexible design concepts and cannot meet the demands of different geographical locations or deal with changes to the physical environmental (Siu, 2013a).

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For example, it is not uncommon for metropolitan cities such as Hong Kong to import street furniture from other countries. Although modifications are sometimes made to meet local needs, the local authorities commonly receive complaints about unsuitably designed street furniture that cannot function effectively in the local environment and does not reflect the local identity and culture (Woo, 2006).

Second, much of today’s street furniture is unable to keep up with the challenges posed by the changing times. As mentioned above, streets are increasingly required to cater to different needs at different times, and thus the function of a street can change frequently. However, much of the existing street furniture, such as ground-fixed bollards and facing, cannot be adapted to meet to the changing functions of the street and is therefore unable to match new or changing social demands and policies. For example, when a new smoking prohibition policy was introduced a few years ago, the Hong Kong Government had to spend large amounts of money in modifying the existing rubbish bins and thousands of bins had to be dumped. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining and upgrading street furniture is prohibitively expensive and can be as high as providing new facilities.

Third, over the past few decades, there has been a growing body of international research on the universal design of public facilities (Architectural Services Department, 2008; Crews and Zavotka, 2006; Iwarsson and Ståhl, 2003; Nasar and Evans-Cowley, 2007). However, this kind of research mainly focuses on building facilities and environments. Little research has examined universal and flexible street furniture design for use by people with varying abilities and disabilities; languages; and physical, social, cultural and psychological needs (Siu, 2013b). For example, only a few specific types of street furniture, such as tactile ground surface indicators, cater to the needs of particular groups (Siu, 2013c), while most other general street furniture does not provide the flexibility needed to suit different users, in particular those with disabilities.

Therefore, as the urban environment is rapidly transforming and thus becoming more and more unpredictable, one of the fundamental requirements of street furniture design is to incorporate sufficient flexibility to adapt to change as required (Leung, 2004). Accordingly, an in-depth study is needed to investigate the concepts and practices of flexibility in street furniture design. This paper reviews the relevant literature to provide an overview of the changes in public street design, the changing requirements of street furniture, the concept of flexibility and the different perspectives of flexible design. Furthermore, to identify the limitations and constraints of the current street furniture design practices with respect to the diverse and changing needs of urban users, certain urban areas in Hong Kong were chosen as the field of investigation. Finally, this paper proposes a series of flexible design principles with detailed guidelines for the flexible design of street furniture to provide direction and inspiration for further studies and the development of this topic.

The social change and flexibility The shift in street design: from transport to liveability Traditionally, sidewalks and streets have simply been seen as a thoroughfare for movement and connection. Moreover, with the rapid urbanisation and increase in automobiles in the early twentieth century, streets increasing became considered solely as traffic arteries for meeting the growing motor-traffic demand. As Southworth and Ben-Joseph (1997, p. 4) state:

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As car ownership and mobility have grown, engineers have assumed that streets must be enlarged accordingly. The result has been regulations and standards that are often in excess of actual traffic requirements.

As a result, streets have been designed primarily to satisfy the needs of motor vehicle drivers, with wide travel lanes and narrow sidewalks, which not only restrict pedestrian accessibility, but also create problems such as air pollution, noise, litter and an increased risk of accidents.

Over the past few decades, urban planners and designers have started to reconsider the concept of the street and have developed improved standards for urban transportation planning and the lived environment. In addition to being the “traffic artery” for pedestrians and cars, the street space also serves various functions in our daily lives (Bain et al., 2012):

It is all too easy to forget that streets are not just there to get people from A to B. In reality, streets have many other functions. They form vital components of residential areas and greatly affect the overall quality of life for local people (Department for Transport, 2007, p. 6).

Accordingly, more and more governments are beginning to re-examine the nature of the street environment and to rewrite their design manuals to incorporate new liveable streets policies. For example, during 1990s, the sidewalks in Melbourne were expanded and improved, and pedestrian zones and new public plazas were established in different areas of the city (Hayter, 2006). According to Lillebye (2001, p. 30), “The enclosed street was redefined not only to make it more attractive, but also to achieve an upgraded status for its social activities and possibilities”. Overall, there is no doubt that there is growing international and local interest in changing the role of streets to create more liveable environments that can satisfy a wide variety of public needs.

Changes in the public demand for street environments and facilities As evidenced by rise of the Livable Streets Movement over the past few decades, people are clearly having higher expectations of the quality of urban public environments, including streets. At the most fundamental level, the public are now requiring that governments establish street design criteria to ensure that streets are appealing, well-maintained, safe and accessible for all users. However, numerous conflicts exist over street use. For example, while most residents want to live in a clean and quiet community, they also favour having an active market nearby that can be accessed on foot. Some residents enjoy a convenient and dynamic use of the streets in their living city, while they also prefer quiet streets near to the flats where they reside.

Regarding street furniture as well as other public facilities and services, the standardisation of the design (e.g. form, design, user-interface) facilitates feelings of greater coherence, but can equally undermine the sense of local identity (Krauel, 2004; Wan, 2008). While pedestrians often request a wider variety of street furniture to cater to their diverse requirements, a substantial amount of street furniture will create street clutter and reduce street accessibility (Leung, 2004).

The increasing number of large public events also presents challenges for local streets and street furniture. As spectacular events such as festivals, celebrations, sports events, parades and protests become increasingly large in scale, more and more people are being drawn to the urban public environment. For example, as a result of the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s increased marketing efforts and new promotion strategies,

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increasing numbers of visitors are travelling to the region. While welcoming the increased numbers of visitors, the government has also begun to actively organise more large-scale events to enhance Hong Kong’s overall attractiveness, such as the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005, the 2009 East Asia Games and the 2023 Asian Games. However, the growing numbers of visitors have resulted in increased traffic and more crowding on the streets of the city. As a result, Hong Kong’s limited public spaces and current facilities and management measures are no longer sufficient to meet the increasing numbers of visitors and large-scale events.

Faced with the rapid increase of large-scale events and road users, the demand for street furniture has far exceeded its capacity for a long period (Leung, 2004; Siu, 2007; Wan, 2008). Unfortunately, there is no long-term policy on how street furniture serves these rapidly and continuously changing circumstances and new urban needs. For example, the government received a number of complaints during the WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2005 regarding the insufficient and improper removal and temporary installation of street furniture. In Wan Chai, the area of the city in which the conference delegates met, while the police occupied much space for setting up security area, all rubbish bins as well as other freestanding facilities were removed and a large number of mills barriers were placed. As criticised by the mass media, such an inflexible plan for flexible change was poor in application, and the piecemeal temporary change not only wasted a large amount of manpower but also created danger, hygienic problems and inconvenience for the general public. In recent years, the same situations have always occurred during special events, festivals and demonstrations (Siu, 2013a). Most of the time, the management practices are piecemeal and biased towards practical areas (security, safety, circulation), while neglecting others (social, cultural, environmental and human issues).

Flexibility: an ability to adapt to change Although the concept of flexibility has been widely examined and studied across multiple disciplines and perspectives, it is still not well-understood (August-Brady, 2000; Chen and Tseng, 2007). As Sethi and Sethi (1990, p. 289) state, “flexibility is a complex, multidimensional, hard-to-capture concept”. For instance, Upton (1994, p. 73) defines flexibility as, “the ability to change or react with little penalty in time, effort, cost or performance”. Jacome et al. (2011, p. 71) refer to flexibility as “a response capability to foreseen or unforeseen changes in the organization or environment”. From the design perspective in particular, Gerwin (1993) delineates two types of flexibility:

(1) changeover flexibility (ability to quickly substitute new products for those currently offered); and

(2) modification flexibility (ability of a process to implement minor design changes in a product), which are able to respond faster to the uncertain, complex and ever-changing customer needs, as well as to achieve a longer product life cycles.

In their study on product design, Rajan et al. (2005) state that flexibility is not only necessary for meeting users’ individual needs, but also for allowing quicker adaptation to future technological, social and market trends. According to Golden and Powell (2000), highly flexible design is capable of maintaining efficiency while accommodating or adapting to change, and can quickly adapt to foreseeable future changes and

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unforeseen circumstances. To achieve these, Rajan et al. (2005) further emphasise the notion of reconfiguration. As the design becomes more modularised, it leads to more product flexibility to meet market demand.

While the views on “flexibility” are with variation, all disciplines would certainly agree that flexibility plays an important role in coping with unanticipated or unplanned events. As Eckert et al. (2010, p. 36) state, “In fields where the required functionality of the product is flexible, especially the software industry, many management strategies are intended to minimize the risk of change”. Flexibility provides opportunities for modification and innovation, and for preventing irreversible consequences (Saleh et al., 2009; Siu, 2013a).

Exploiting flexibility in street furniture design “Flexible design” has been suggested and implemented by urban designers in many street furniture and facility design programmes as a means of adapting to the changing urban environment. A number of studies have addressed the term “flexible design”, and some brief definitions and implications of “flexible” can also be found in the literature. For instance, flexible street furniture has been defined as furniture that is designed with a series of modular parts, which “allow for opportunities for customization and the ability to accommodate new technologies” (City of Toronto, 2006). For some urban planners and designers, flexibility is equal to movability (King Street Task Force, 2009; Riga, 2009). Highly movable street furniture can be easily removed and installed according to public needs. As stated in the City of Sydney’s (2009, p. 32) Chinatown Public Domain Study, “Flexible street furniture could accommodate a range of uses, not limited to the operating hours of the market”. In line with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2011) definition of flexibility as the ability to “bend easily without breaking”, flexible design can also be viewed as bendable design. Indeed, in recent years, street furniture with flexible framing, such as bendable bollards, lampposts and road signs, has been increasingly deployed alongside roads and pedestrian walkways in many cities.

In summary, the above cases indicate that the definitions of “flexibility” and “flexible design” mentioned by various policymakers, professionals and researchers are not always consistent or systematic. As a result, the term “flexibility” is difficult to analyse and apply in regard to furniture design. Hence, this paper focuses on exploring the design of flexible street furniture to cater to today’s ever-changing social needs.

Research methodology This paper makes use of a literature and document review, and the results of observations and interviews to examine the current issues and challenges related to street furniture around the world, with a particular focus on Hong Kong as a case study. The literature and document review covered existing development plans and programmes for streets and street furniture. Also reviewed were local and overseas street and street furniture studies, with the aim of gathering information on the current issues relating to street furniture, the problems users encounter when using street furniture and how these issues and problems apply to “flexibility” in street and street furniture design.

As several problems and issues were identified through the literature and document review, intensive field observation, direct interview and semi-structured interviews

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were carried out during 2009 to 2013, which help to illustrate the policies, implementation and management of the existing street furniture in Hong Kong. The crucial idea is that the researchers go “into the field” to observe the phenomenon in its natural state or in-situ (Trochim, 1999). Field observation provides some indication of how such street furniture was used in practice in urban areas. “Field observation differs from some other models of observation in that it is not only a data-collecting activity. Frequently, perhaps typically, it is a theory-generating activity as well” (Babbie, 1992). Compared to quantitative data generated in laboratory, qualitative data collected from the urban areas give a more realistic understanding of interaction between city users and street furniture, as well as a deeper insight into the view of government offers and people with special needs on street furniture.

The complete observation approach was used, allowing the study of people in their “natural setting” without being influenced by the presence of the researchers. The observations focused on examining what people do naturally without attracting their awareness (Emerson et al., 2001). Intensive field observations were conducted of the existing street furniture design practices, and to identify the current issues and problems, and different usage patterns and behaviours of pedestrians at various locations and times. To establish reliability, the researcher compiled field notes and took several photos as references. Most of the time, direct interviews with selected users were carried out on sites to verify the observation data (Patton et al., 2013).

As the Hong Kong Government provides most of the street furniture in the city, interviews were also conducted with officers in the relevant government departments to collect their views on the general practices, issues and problems relating to the flexible design of street furniture in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with officers in the Planning Department (PD), Transport Department (TD), Highways Department (HD) and Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD). Officers from the TD were interviewed face-to-face and others were interviewed by telephone. A representative of the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), which provides a certain amount of the existing street furniture in Hong Kong, was also interviewed. The following questions (as a kind of questions for further elaboration and explanation) were asked to the interviewees:

Q1. What is the role of your department, especially in terms of responsibilities regarding street furniture issues in Hong Kong?

Q2. Some research has suggested that many street furniture which emphasise on their functionality and practicality and as a result, paying less attention to users’ psychological needs and cultural needs. Do you agree? What are your views?

Q3. What are your opinions about “flexibility” and “flexible street furniture”?

Q4. Does the government have any plan to improve the flexibility of street furniture?

In addition, to gain the opinions of people with disabilities, semi-structured interviews with visually impaired persons and wheelchair users were conducted. The interviewees were from the Rehabilitation Alliance Hong Kong (RAHK) and were knowledgeable of barrier-free access and facilities. The interview guide consisted of the following questions:

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Q5. What do you think about the current street furniture in the city?

Q6. What problems you are facing in using the street furniture and how you currently solve them?

Q7. What general recommendations do you have regarding the street furniture design?

Q8. A brief overview of the study and pre-formulated interview questions were sent via email to the relevant government departments and organisations before the interviews to provide a clear picture for the interviewees.

Findings: street furniture in changing society According to the observation and interview findings, there are six key issues relating to the “flexibility” of street furniture design in the light of the diverse and changing urban needs of Hong Kong (Figure 1). These issues are not independent that they directly and indirectly link with others. For example, the degree and nature of standardisation significantly affect the degree of suitability to all users. The practice of management also considerably relates to the result of safety policy, while the changing function of a street also gives influence to the management arrangement. The detailed description and discussion of the six issues are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Overly standardised street furniture The majority of street furniture is mass-produced and widely installed in different streets and public spaces. In line with this, most governments consider standardised design as the best option for controlling the quality and cost of street furniture. As Theodosiou and Katsikeas (2001, p. 3) state, “The most significant advantage of standardisation is its contribution to the achievement of economies of scale and cost savings in production, research and development, and marketing”. However, overly standardised street furniture can also cause the following problems.

Figure 1. Six key issues

relating to street furniture design

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First, standardised street furniture has a limited capacity to suit a wide variety of street conditions. For example, to claim to have better management and lower the production cost, the Hong Kong Government has preferred to standardise the public rubbish bins such that there is only one general type of bins available in the city. The existing different bins seen in the city are those old designs that will be phased out shortly. As stated, this standard design has some advantage, but it also causes a lot of problems such that the bins most of the time cannot meet the varied configurations of different public places. On the other hand, to overcome the similar issue, the City of Melbourne has preferred to take another approach. The Street Furniture Plan developed by the City of Melbourne (2005) describes 22 types of bollards that differ in terms of size and scale to suit the city’s varied needs.

Second, the street is the most crucial element in the construction of the city landscape. Accordingly, street furniture, whether historical or contemporary, is widely recognised as making an important contribution to the local identity and character of the urban landscape and the existing sense of place (Yu, 2003; Siu and Wan, 2004; Yang, 2005). Unfortunately, the overly standardised street furniture tends to create a sense of sprawl with no identity and produces visual monotony. Although some departments and organisations (e.g. the Urban Renewal Authority and Home Affairs Department in Hong Kong) have also put effort to use street furniture specifically designed for designated streets, it is not practical or economical for governments to design and produce tailor-made street furniture with special design elements for every characteristic street and district.

Failure to adapt to the changing function of streets The observations and interview findings indicate that most of the existing street furniture in Hong Kong fails to cope with the diverse and changing demands of the urban environment when the function of a street changes.

There has been growing demand for wider pedestrian pathways and high-quality walking environments in Hong Kong since the public began voicing their concerns about public open spaces in 1999. As a result, more and more pedestrian schemes have been implemented by the TD in crowed areas in Hong Kong. Under these schemes, some roads are closed to traffic during certain hours and people are free to walk, perform or use the area in other ways. In other words, by changing the main road users from vehicles to pedestrians, the implementation of the Pedestrianisation Scheme has transformed the function of the street from a traffic artery to a public open space. In addition, during holidays, festive seasons and large events, large crowds are expected to gather on the street. The organisers, together with the authorities, are normally required to implement various measures to provide large multifunctional open spaces for the activities on the street.

Along with the increasing number of public events and the implementation of the Pedestrianisation Scheme in Hong Kong, more public open spaces and other recreational services are expected to be provided for pedestrians in response to the changing street environment. However, most of the existing street furniture in Hong Kong is not flexible enough to deal with such changes. For example, a well-known pedestrian street in Hong Kong, Sai Yeung Choi Street South, has various types of shops and is heavily used by private cars and goods vehicles. According to the field observations, during the pedestrian period, the traffic lights, signage and railings rapidly become redundant. At

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the same time, even though Sai Yeung Choi Street South has been changed to serve as a public open space, no recreational street furniture such as benches, tables, toilets or drinking fountains are provided for the public. Moreover, the current street furniture, such as the rubbish bins and cigarette ash containers, is also unable to cope with sudden increases of rubbish due to having a fixed volume. It was found that most of the rubbish bins in Sai Yeung Choi Street South frequently overflowed, especially on Saturday and general holidays.

Unmovable street furniture also hinders the use of public open spaces. Although guard rails and pedestrian barriers play an important road safety role by separating pedestrians and vehicle traffic, they can obstruct or inconvenience thousands of people during mass assembly and large public events. Because the railings are fixed, they restrict the extension of the open space for large crowds on special days or for unforeseen incidents. For instance, hundreds of people were packed on the 1.5-m-wide pedestrian paths along Kau Yuk Road in Yuen Long during the Tin Hau festival parade in 2009 because of the fixed railings between sidewalk and roadway. As also complained by the District Councillors, such kind of inflexible arrangement might be dangerous to the people watching the parade.

Even if the government is willing to remove the obstructive railings, the fixed street furniture presents another daunting challenge. The field observations of 1 July rallies in 2009 and 2010 indicated that government workers spent considerable time on removing the railings and bollards that are installed outside Victoria Park to free more space for the procession. During the removal work, a section of the traffic lane was closed to allow the workers to tear down the railings and dismantle them piece-by-piece. Because the railings and bollards are fixed vertically into the ground by concrete block, the workers had to use sledgehammers to remove them. It was observed that the removal work not only duplicated effort, resources and time (over 5 minutes to remove one set of railings and bollards), but also created unnecessary inconvenience and potential danger to workers and pedestrians. After the public procession, the railings and bollards were reinstalled in concrete by the workers. Thus, it is expected that the same process will need to be completed for the next public procession.

Safety problems Hong Kong is situated on a common tropical cyclone path and is usually affected by two to three typhoons between May and November every year. However, as the rubbish bins in Hong Kong are too light in weight, that this weather matters has not been seriously considered. The bins also do not include a design feature to let the management to handle this matter flexibly, thus, in turn, many bins are prone to being blown down by strong winds and can easily hit pedestrians or structures on the street. To prevent such situations, a management strategy has been drawn up where one to two days before a typhoon comes close or passes through Hong Kong, the department responsible will send staff to temporarily tie the rubbish bins securely with rope and ensure that all containers in public areas are secured to a fixed structure, such as bollards or railings. However, as there are more than 20,000 rubbish bins in Hong Kong (Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, 2014), this operation is far from efficient in terms of manpower and resources. Moreover, cleaning staff have to untie and retie the knots before and after clearing the bins, which makes the clearing process more complicated and time-consuming.