Extraordinary for Landscape Architects - The natural style of the Streetlife collection

The Dutch company Streetlife is characterised by its unconventional approach towards product innovation, often in collaboration with landscape architects. Designer and director Peter Krouwel explains: “Last year (2017), the entire company got behind the task we set for ourselves of developing 34 new products. Quite a technical and creative challenge!”

The product themes included: ‘More sustainable materials, preferably constructed from waste’, ‘Flexible solutions to make city centres greener’, ‘Longevity & Long-lasting’ and ‘No design & Rough it up’. The surprising solutions that emerged have been incorporated in the new catalogue and presented on the website. “Being a small team, we can be very proud of this accomplishment, not in the least because of the international recognition and responses we have received,” says Krouwel.

Browse through the catalogue and you will immediately notice many photos of projects that incorporate the company’s products. That’s because Streetlife believes street furniture is best shown in real-life settings. It is also clear a good deal of attention has been paid to ensure that readers find the book easy to navigate. This is helped by the clear structure and the content outline displayed on the backflap of the catalogue, which contains a wide-ranging collection of products. The impressive content is presented under the theme: ‘Extraordinary for Landscape Architects’.

The Streetlife collection comprises eight categories. The modular bench systems cover two categories subdivided into Rough and Fine Benches. The chapters that follow showcase combinations of Green Benches and Tree Isles, which have come to characterise Streetlife, as well as bicycle parking and small structural objects, such as Rough&Ready Shades and the new Parklets. Finally, there are the various bicycle and pedestrian bridges, all in the distinctive ‘natural style’.

The same structure has been implemented on the website. The existing product selector has been extended with a handy filter and new, larger photos are displayed to help create a stimulating online environment for landscaping architects and urban planners.

The extensive Streetlife collection comprises close to 150 products. The unique coherence between the different solutions is quite striking and offers the architect a multitude of possibilities to combine elements within the collection in order to facilitate complete, integrated project designs.

Streetlife has made a name for itself through its numerous international projects, which include the London Olympic Games (UK), Bastiaansplein in Delft (NL), Place Darcy in Dijon (FR), Augustusplatz Campus in Leipzig (DE), Koning Leopold III square in Blankenberge (BE), Ernst Wigforss Plats in Halmstad (SE), Media City Bergen (NO) and 626 First Avenue in New York (VS).