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Plug & Plop: Urban Add-Ons Turn Street-Side Bollards into Seats & Tables

06 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Designed to act as barriers, bollards are a common sight in cities around the world — but what if they could engage rather than just separate?

This series of simple additions from Teratoma dubbed PLUG A SEAT aim to transform (or at least extend) the function of the bollard, converting rows of columns into arrays of seating and table space.

The lacquered aluminum surfaces add a bit of color along with functionality, and have a variety of potential applications — they could be affixed permanently, or added temporarily by individuals eating lunch downtown, or deployed during street festivals.

These extenders can also be sized to fit different dimensions of bollard for different metropolitan areas (though one might hope that a future iteration could be able to expand and contract on demand).

In the grander scheme, these kinds of simple guerrilla furniture designs highlight potential new uses for old extant infrastructure. And who knows: maybe bollards will start to lose their original function as self-driving cars take to the streets, but instead of being removed could find second lives serving other purposes.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Eyebombing Bulgaria: Artist Adds Googly Eyes to Bollards, Bins & Pipes

09 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

As public art interventions go, googly-eye additions to urban objects and surfaces are pretty simple to implement, effectively animating their surroundings without too much work (or risk of being caught).

Humans are naturally wired to read faces into ordinary things, but an extra cue or too by someone like Vanyu Krastev solidifies the effect, often with hilarious results.

Cracked bollards become crooked Pac Man-esque creatures and gaping water pipes seem to scream while doors and garbage cans gain strange sentience. The emotive range of these inanimate objects is quite impressive, considering it’s entirely in the eye of the viewer (and the two eyes placed on a given thing).

Eyebombing is nothing new (at least as old as the internet and probably as old as ‘googly eyes’ themselves), but always a fun way to lighten someone’s day as they pass by on the street. It’s also a form of expression anyone can engage in — very little skill or cash required.

It is “different from traditional types of street art like tagging, sticking, stencils” according to Eyebombing.com because “the above forms are largely driven by egocentric behaviour, like getting seen, respect and maybe a hope to get famous, often using vandalism as modus operandi.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Posts With The Most: 12 Cool & Creative Traffic Bollards

29 Sep

[ By Steve in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Traffic Bollards Leicester 1
Never mind the bollards? Uh-uh: these traffic stoppers halt wayward vehicles like no traffic cone can. The best bollards, though, are designed to look great!

Traffic Bollards Leicester 2

Traffic Bollards Leicester 3

Leicester City Council faced a conundrum in early 2014: children walking to and from Whitehall Primary school were endangered by vehicular road traffic. The street had no sidewalks; only a row of metal traffic bollards. The council’s ingenious solution was to modify the bollards to look like children, many wearing the school’s red uniforms. Kudos to Flickr user KiranParmar for capturing these kinda creepy “Stepford Children” in their native habitat.

Traffic Bollards Leicester 4

Traffic Bollards Leicester 5

Traffic Bollards Leicester 6

Not only do the modified bollards remind drivers to be aware of pedestrians, the scheme is much cheaper than laying down sidewalks. One would hope older ex-students don’t try to re-enact the infamous mailbox scene from the 1993 film Dazed and Confused… a metal bollard beats a wooden baseball bat every time.

Lean Design

Leaning Tower Pisa Traffic Bollard

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” and when traffic tilts your traffic bollard, make it look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa of course! Kate McGovern snapped this tilted but still functional bollard somewhere in Philadelphia. Compromised or not, the bollard seems in better shape than the surrounding pavement while providing some unexpected visual interest.

Minions Of Bollards

Traffic Bollards Penang Malaysia 1

Traffic Bollards Penang Malaysia 2

Traffic Bollards Penang Malaysia 3

Who knew the 2010 movie Despicable Me was so popular… in Penang, Malaysia! Located on Soo Hong Lane off Armenian Street in Penang’s inner George Town neighborhood, the charming street art installation was painted by Lithuanian-born artist Ernest Zacharevic early in 2013 as part of a city-sanctioned campaign to beautify Soo Hong Lane. Unfortunately, Zacharevic had to be recalled to repaint at least one of the not-so-despicable bollards which was defaced – literally – by vandals.

LEGO My Bollard!

LEGO Man Traffic Bollards Le CyKlop Paris 1

LEGO Man Traffic Bollards Le CyKlop Paris 2

LEGO Man Traffic Bollards Le CyKlop Paris 3

LEGO Man Traffic Bollards Le CyKlop Paris 4

One popular bollard design features a narrowed area near the top to facilitate the attachment of ropes, chains and the like. Coincidentally, these particular bollards bear a cursory resemblance to LEGO men… and a little artistry (plus some yellow paint) enhances the effect even more. The oddly one-eyed LEGO men bollards above come to us courtesy of French street artist Le CyKlop (which explains much) and can be found along the Canal de l’Ourcq in Paris