If your workers are spending more time outdoors now, these stylish benches and chairs can give them options

by Brianna Crandall — September 7, 2020 — Landscape Forms, a designer and manufacturer of high-design site furniture, structures, LED lighting, and accessories used around the world, introduced several new and enhanced pieces of outdoor furniture in recent weeks. The products may be of interest to facilities managers (FMs) looking to add more work or break spaces outside, or to anyone who wants to specify beautiful, low-maintenance seating in public spaces.

Outdoor furniture collaborations with Loll

Landscape Forms is introducing two new products — Americana and Glide — and is expanding the current Harvest line to include a standing height bench in its collaboration with Duluth, Minnesota-based Loll Designs.

Landscape Forms Chief Creative Officer Kirt Martin noted:

Collaboration is one of the principal factors in our design process. We specifically seek design-led partners who share our ethos and culture, and Loll is the quintessential example.  The Americana chair, Glide bench and Harvest embody our shared passion for creating outdoor experiences and expressing that passion through design.

Americana chair

Americana is a refinement of the classic Adirondack-style chair, seen through the lens of Landscape Forms and Loll.  The Americana chair utilizes 100-percent post-consumer recycled plastic for the seat and back, providing a long, low-maintenance life. The rust-proof commercial-grade cast and extruded aluminum supports and understructure are finished with Landscape Forms’ proprietary powder-coating designed to resist fading and chipping.

Landscape Forms Americana chair

Americana, a low-maintenance refinement of the classic Adirondack-style chair, offers an optional tablet arm to hold food and beverages or to serve as a functional work surface. Image courtesy Landscape Forms

Americana’s form factor is both wider and taller than a traditional Adirondack chair to enhance comfort, offer a wider range of seating positions, and aid ingress and egress. Accessories for Americana include a hanger underneath the arm for secure bag or purse storage and an optional tablet arm, providing a wider surface for food and beverages or to serve as a functional work surface.

 

Greg Benson, founder and CEO of Loll Designs, remarked:

The Adirondack chair is near and dear to our hearts at Loll since our modern take on it was our debut product back in 2006. It’s a symbol of comfort, relaxation, and the appreciation of the outdoors. In the Americana chair, we’ve reimagined the traditional Adirondack with Landscape Forms to make a bold design statement and to ensure it stands the test of time in public spaces.

Glide bench

The Glide bench, another new Landscape Forms product designed in collaboration with Loll, is a modern backed bench crafted from 100-percent post-consumer recycled plastic for the seat and back, with powder-coated rust-proof commercial-grade metal supports.

Landscape Forms Glide backed bench

Glide is a modern backed bench with a unique design, that can be specified with or without arms. Image courtesy Landscape Forms

Kirt Martin recalled:

The Glide bench specifically provided an interesting design challenge for us. It’s hard to design for both simplicity and also differentiation, but I’m so pleased with the solution that arose from the collaboration between both design teams. The way we connected the bench to the back gives it a unique gesture that is simple and elegant while simultaneously being like nothing anyone has seen before.

Equally suited to stand alone or pair with Landscape Forms’ Harvest dining-height table, Glide benches can be specified with or without arms.

Harvest backless bench

A new Harvest backless bench at standing height has also been added to pair with the standing-height Harvest table. The Harvest collection centers around bringing people together, and this latest addition offers even more possibilities for people to create shared experiences outdoors.

Landscape Forms Harvest backless bench at standing height

“Robust yet seemingly weightless,” the versatile Trapecio bench now features an architectural concrete option for the seat and back. Image courtesy Landscape Forms

Casual yet elegant, the new standing-height bench paired with the respective Harvest table invites groups, whether seated, standing, leaning or some combination thereof, to settle in and share the moment. The new backless bench is the right height to enable most users to rest their feet on the Harvest table’s metal understructure and can be specified with optional bag hangers underneath the seat of the bench.

The Americana chair, Glide bench and standing height Harvest bench are available in a variety of standard colors.

Bench collaboration with Santa & Cole Urbidermis

Landscape Forms also introduced an expansion to the Trapecio bench offering, designed in collaboration with Barcelona-founded Santa & Cole Urbidermis, to include an architectural concrete option for the seat and back.

Landscape Forms Trapecio bench

“Robust yet seemingly weightless,” the versatile Trapecio bench now features an architectural concrete option for the seat and back. Image courtesy Landscape Forms

Martin explained:

Trapecio was designed with two central ideas in mind — a strong sense of versatility in its function combined with an elegant sense of tension and balance in its form. The decision to incorporate a concrete option leans into both of these ideas, enhancing the bench’s durability and versatility while firmly embracing the almost paradoxical qualities of its design — robust yet seemingly weightless, suspended yet solidly anchored.

Trapecio is named for the two long, offset trapezoidal prisms that compose that back and seat of the bench. A large-scale site furnishing designed to comfortably accommodate seating or leaning on both the seat and the back, Trapecio is at home in parks and along avenues, as well as in corporate, educational, and healthcare campus settings. Landscape Forms will continue to offer the Trapecio bench constructed with an Alaska Yellow Cedar back and seat in addition to its new concrete counterpart.

Landscape Forms Chief Executive Officer Marjorie Simmons commented:

We’re always excited to introduce new products from Santa & Cole Urbidermis. In the ten years we’ve worked with them, they’ve become a close partner to Landscape Forms. Though our teams span the Atlantic Ocean, our cultures and design philosophies mesh so seamlessly. The beautiful new Trapecio bench embodies this unique partnership.

Santa & Cole Urbidermis uses recycled, recyclable and renewable materials, reducing the energy use, maintenance and after-life impacts of its products, and partners with municipalities, utility companies and universities to develop sustainable practices for managing the city. The firm’s products have roots in 20th century modernism and are designed to make the urban experience “more interesting, comfortable and friendly.”

For more information on the new and enhanced outdoor furniture, click on the product links above.

Founded in 1969, Landscape Forms’ US headquarters and manufacturing facility is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with sales representatives throughout North America, South America, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Asia. Landscape Forms collaborates with renowned industrial designers and consultancies, landscape architects, and architects to design and develop integrated collections of products that address emerging needs and help create a sense of place.

Landscape Forms has an installed base of products around the world. Clients include municipalities, transit centers, corporate, college and health care campuses, and familiar brand leaders such as Harvard University, LinkedIn, New York Central Park Conservancy, Bryant Park, Google, Coca Cola, Oculus, U.S. Tennis Association, Nike, National Museum of African American History (in DC), Barclays Center, Adidas, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Microsoft and Uber.