Street furniture by ABES

However, street furniture is first and foremost about fulfilling a specific purpose and assuming a clearly defined task in public space. Hence the starting point is always the practical benefit for the public: street furniture creates seating facilities, delimitates areas, separates streets from sidewalks, receives waste, offers bike parking facilities and many others.

The ABES product range is tailored to the various areas of application of street furniture and can therefore provide the best suited furniture for any purpose. From bollards with 3p-Technology to park benches, planters, bicycle stands, and waste containers, it includes a variety of products which can be individually adapted to the visual requirements of their location.

Due to the simple mounting options – the patented 3p-Technology in particular, but also the possibility to fasten products with a flange, such as the ABES bicycle U-rack – street furniture by ABES also offers a high level of flexibility, regarding as well its placement as the option of quick assembly and disassembly. Not to mention the potential combinations as a result of this flexible handling; these could not be implemented with conventional, fixedly mounted and immobile street furniture.

Beyond the practical benefits, street furniture also has to meet different aesthetic requirements. After all, it is a component of public space visible to everyone and contributes significantly to the overall impression. This is why the ABES company is particularly interested in the subjects of form and design. Among the series of innovative and individual street furniture, both the bicycle stand 450-1 and the bollard 001-1 with 3p-Technology received the “red dot” award from the Design Center North Rhine-Westphalia.

Overall, the requirement for recognizable custom designs with their own character applies to the entire ABES product range. The recognition can even be increased with models made of cast aluminum as these can be provided with the city’s coat of arms – bollards, benches or waste containers thus generate a visible contribution to the urban corporate identity. Thereby, the street furniture can be compelling in any environment, whether in a residential area, on public squares, in parks or in business districts. Because many products are made of cast aluminum, custom demands can be taken into account for the shape and the design.

As close as the comparison with domestic furniture may seem, it lags behind in a very central aspect: robustness. Living room furniture surely should come up with a fair amount of longevity, but these are completely different conditions. Street furniture is exposed to the weather all year round, has to withstand a different kind of stress depending on its use, and has to endure unpleasant, but still occurring vandalism.

At the manufacturing process and when selecting the processed materials, the ABES company ensures maximum robustness, allowing the street furniture to leave a good impression as long as possible. Galvanized or stainless steel, powder-coated cast aluminum and selected hardwood species, durable and robust, are used for this purpose. This ensures that the street furniture is weatherproof and hard-wearing, and thus maintains the visual enhancement of its location for a long time.

Public space is a space of encounter, communication, and conviviality. Seating facilities offer opportunities to the public to find a place to linger in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and for precisely this same conviviality.

The ABES company supplies a variety of park benches for this purpose, allowing the appropriate model for each site to be found: whether classic, simple or rather modern, with or without backrests and armrests. All products are equally inviting and suitable for many types of environment – from parks to children’s playgrounds to bus stops.

The bench system 104 also allows, with its modular design, to create custom seating landscapes. Due to the large variety of products, the seating facilities can be tailored to various target groups and thus create a place for all ages.

ABES seats for seniors, for example, pick up on the special needs of elderly people: they are equipped with additional handrails to ensure the highest level of safety. Footrests and pneumatic springs provide comfortable support while sitting down and getting up.

For some benches, matching tables are available; combined with the seating facilities, they provide a true place of rest.

Note: For even more custom design options, it is possible to select the wood for the seats as well as the color of the powder-coated steel to meet your own needs. Individual seat heights and bench lengths are also feasible.

Downtown areas only come alive through plants. They provide a contrast to the surrounding buildings and set a piece of nature into the center of a city. As green areas and parks are so popular, it is all the more important to make them look appealing.

Planters are an equally practical and beautiful option to bring about greenery in public spaces, especially where there is not enough space for extensive tree planting. The ABES planters offer maximum flexibility beyond the plants used.

• Their compact size allows, if necessary, to move the planters without difficulty to another location. They are therefore not obstructive at major events and can accommodate plants that otherwise won’t survive the winter outdoors.
• Like all products by ABES, the planters are variable in size and shape; a customized design is also possible. Regardless of this, weatherproof stainless steel is used in general.

Tree guards are an effective and unobtrusive measure to secure trees in public spaces. As perhaps the most shaping elements of urban planting and as important climate regulators, trees deserve special protection, especially where mechanical influences – such as the impact of a car – could cause damage.

The frames protect without cancelling out the visual impression and are available in a removable version on demand.

One of the biggest challenges of urban planning is to meet the many forms of urban mobility: the available space is scarce for all road users, and not only motorists have trouble finding a suitable parking spot for their vehicle. Equally affected are cyclists who still often play a subordinate role in public (traffic) space and are therefore inadequately supplied with bicycle stands or bike racks.

The ABES bicycle stands and racks remedy this situation and provide answers to some important questions. The diversity of the product range allows finding suitable solutions:

• independently of the available space or the location (in front of town halls, universities, hospitals, train stations, exhibition centers or park and ride car parks)
• for a wide range of safety requirements;
• for numerous subsoils, without restriction of secure fastening;
• to satisfy custom design requests;
• for permanent installations, for removal (with ground socket) or to bolt on (with a flange).

Basically, the ABES portfolio includes three different options for the secure storage of bicycles in public spaces.

• Bicycle stands are the most common storage element; they clasp around the front wheel, which can be secured with a bicycle lock.
• U-racks, on the other hand, are designed to have the bicycles leant against and secured to their frame with a lock.
• Bicycle grid racks are a third alternative; the front or rear wheel is placed in the rack and secured with a lock.

The ways of bicycle storage are almost unlimited; the various stands can be accommodated as unobtrusive, space-saving and yet visually appealing design elements in any environment. In terms of functionality and safety, every variant meets the highest standards; this also applies to the robustness factor. The bicycle racks become variable by using a ground socket for the mount instead of a foundation.

By using 3p-Technology bollard stands, their related pluses (quick and cost-effective assembly and disassembly as well as a decrease of eventual repair costs by reason of the separate predetermined breaking point) can be benefitted from. Models with LED strips such as the 453 U-rack provide additional safety.

Downtown, unfortunately, a serious problem is all too often to been seen: the legacy of the throwaway society. Although public space “belongs” to everybody, is doesn’t imply that everyone equally cares about waste prevention. The consequences are as displeasing as they are painful, and they diminish the quality of life that could actually be gained from urban space.

For cities and local communities, a strategic set-up of waste containers and ashtrays is the most sensible measure to counter the impending garbage mountains on streets, squares, and in pedestrian areas (according to a pan-European study, cigarette butts account for the largest share of discarded objects).

As for every street furniture element, an explicit robustness is also required of waste containers and ashtrays. They have to blend into existing street furniture and their value for money has to suit municipal budgets. The waste containers by ABES are in no way inferior to their other products in terms of flexibility and customization.

• Their capacity ranges from 30 liters to 75 liters.
• Depending on the model, waste containers are available either hot-dip galvanized or powder-coated, in their desired color, and – as optical extra on request – with a customized circumferential laser-cut pattern.
• To protect against rain, household waste deposits, and birds several models come with a cover.
• Additional extras exist, such as separate inner containers, skewers to store waste bags, ashtrays, etc.

All models confirm that waste disposal and an 5appealing appearance can be related.

The same applies to the ABES ashtrays; they allow cities and local communities to prevent the unsightly accumulation of discarded cigarette butts in public spaces. Three different versions are available.

• Free-standing ashtrays, mobile or stationary, are made of steel sheet or polished stainless steel and can be used in numerous areas. They provide a robust, aesthetically pleasing and easy to use solution (this includes cleaning), whether in smoking areas or in front of buildings.
• Ashtray bollards are taking on an additional task by serving as barrier to driveways or other restricted areas. Combined with 3p-Technology, they become removable and thus an exceedingly flexible street furniture.
• Wall-mounted and thus space-saving ashtrays can be applied on external walls and are the most discreet option among these three designs.

Life in the city also stands for being mobile. To avoid pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and public transport getting in each other’s way, the use of bollards and barrier posts is an effective and elegant way of separating different areas and thus ensuring safety.

As for the entire ABES product range, the same high quality standards in terms of material, processing, robustness and appearance are applied to every model. 3p-Technology is an important feature in bollards and barrier posts as it offers on the one hand the highest level of flexibility and can be quickly and easily installed or removed during events or rescue operations. On the other hand, 3p-Technology helps reducing the impact on a community’s budget by a lot if it a collision by a motor vehicle occurs. In that event, only the connector between the ground socket and the bollard breaks and repair costs are kept to a minimum, compared to firmly anchored variants.

Furthermore, bollards and barrier posts by ABES hold a lot of advantages:

• for all areas of application: various fastening options allow the barriers to be installed in almost any environment and on almost any subsoil.
• for multiple purposes: the functionality of the product line is considerable, and barrier posts, bollards, lighting bollards, feeder bollards, parking blocks, traffic cones and parking barriers play an important role in many domains of public life. Traffic management, electricity and/or water supply, infrastructure layout – all can be covered with the various models.
• for enhanced safety: depending on the required safety level, bollards and barrier posts can be adjusted in their attachment. A rollaway prevention is a reasonable option on traffic routes, since after a collision road users are not put at risk by a bollard gone astray. The already extraordinary stability (without any vacillation) can further be improved by a 3p connector without breaking point, which is advisable where an elevated safety risk is to be worried about.
• for extra flexibility: installing and removing bollards is an easy task with 3p-Technology. Public spaces can be redesigned depending on the space requirement, without neglecting the safety issue. Also, the patented fastening system is a cost-efficient solution due to its easy handling.