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Landscape Forms Announces The Introduction Of Metro40
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| Oct 19, 2009 |
Landscape Forms, a designer, manufacturer and marketer of award-winning commercial outdoor furniture and accessories, is pleased to announce the introduction of Metro40, a collection of integrated site furniture, from shelters, lighting and receptacles to benches, bike racks and bollards. Metro40 debuted at the ASLA Conference and Expo at McCormick Place in Chicago, September 18 – 22, 2009.
Landscape Forms has earned an urban presence as the world’s largest manufacturer of high-design site and streetscape furniture and amenities. Now, with Metro40, the company expands its product focus to specifically address urban transit issues and needs. Its design partner for this collection is BMW Group DesignworksUSA, a global design consultancy with more than 37 years of design experience. Acquired by BMW Group in 1995, BMW Group DesignworksUSA has offices in California, Munich and Singapore. The firm’s global design expertise and experience can be found in a wide range of industries, from public transit to consumer electronics, medical to motor sports.
For Metro40, Landscape Forms drew on the special expertise BMW Group DesignworksUSA has in transportation, where its successful projects include a whole range of products that put people in motion: cars and airplane interiors, bicycles, trains and yachts.
Landscape Forms President, Bill Main, stated, “This exceptional collection incorporates the best thinking of our own team and that of BMW Group DesignworksUSA. We brought our depth of experience in streetscapes and our commitment to the urban environment, and they brought their passion for design, their comprehensive view of mobility, and their international perspective. It has been a genuine collaboration and we believe that designers, managers, and users of urban spaces and transit corridors will appreciate the results.”
People are in motion all around the globe. Metro40 is designed to manage people in motion and help cities provide the comfortable, attractive, high-quality facilities and amenities required to build a broader constituency for public streetscapes and public transit. This is a goal widely viewed as critical for the environment, public health, safety, comfort and quality of urban life.
The Collection
Starting with research in Europe, Asia and North America, Landscape Forms and BMW Group DesignworksUSA applied their distinctive competencies to create an integrated collection of comfortable, beautiful and flexible urban transit and streetscape furnishings with global appeal.
The Metro40 Collection of Integrated Solutions includes:
- CONNECT – A pedestrian-scale transit shelter, designed for bus or light rail
- COLLECT – Litter and recycling receptacles
- REST – A bench, with or without back
- RIDE – A bike rack
- STOP – A bollard, designed for traffic control, with optional lighting
- HI GLO – A 12-feet tall LED Pedestrian Light
- LO GLO – A 3-feet tall LED Pathway Light
- SHOW – A display structure, designed to house advertising, signage and transit information
Inspired by mobility, the Metro40 collection has a dynamic design language that expresses the central themes of modern transit: movement and flow, continuity and change. As a result, graceful, continuous shapes are integrated into all elements of the collection.
The dynamic, organic profiles twist and wrap in unexpected ways to cause visual excitement and tension. Accelerating curves create a sense of positive motion and energy, and give each individual piece an element of surprise. Since these products typically will be in use for 10 –15 years, the design language integrates both contemporary and future contexts for a timeless effect.
The large Metro40 family of compatible but non-identical products combines metal and wood in simple, direct structures with flowing planes and seamless transition between materials. The collection’s overall design is one of theme and variation. The source of its distinctive aesthetic is the mobius strip form of the frame of the Connect Shelter, Hi Glo and Lo Glo Lighting, and Rest Bench – the ‘stars’ of the show. ‘Supporting players’ have complimentary flat ribbon frames with angled edges that vary in dimension to provide interesting visual effects from all directions.
Metro40 products are manufactured primarily of aluminum, glass and wood, which marry visual lightness with structural strength. Their design is contemporary but not edgy. The collection is elegant, warm, simple and clean. These seven different site elements are related in design, individual in function and international in spirit. Elegant engineering provides solutions that can be assembled and finished in multiple locations and delivered anywhere in the world. Innovative applications of LED technology, designed in collaboration with award-winning lighting consultants, Clanton & Associates, push the envelope on energy, environment and health in lighting for outdoor spaces.
Metro40 provides sustainable solutions. The elements are designed to support mass transit, bicycle use and recycling. They are manufactured of recycled aluminum and steel and finished using environmentally friendly techniques. All lighting uses LED technology for reduced energy consumption, long life and low maintenance. The Connect shelter can be relocated and reused and includes a solar lighting option. Wood options include FSC and certified wood.
Community, Amenity, Mobility
- Metro40 supports mobility, amenity and community and is aimed at achieving livable, workable, walkable cities.
- Mobility: Metro40 supports people in motion wherever they are.
- Amenity: Metro40 provides utility and comfort with exceptional style for streetscapes and the transit core.
- Community: Metro40 expresses integration and connection, and complements urban infrastructure to enhance quality of life.
The Metro40 collection will be available for installations beginning the first quarter of 2010
About BMW Group DesignworksUSA
BMW Group DesignworksUSA provides design strategy, research, development, sustainability consulting, brand communications, 3D modeling and color, materials and finish to many of the world’s great brands. In addition to being the creative partner to BMW Group, which includes BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, other DesignworksUSA clients include Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing Business Jets, Embraer, Pilatus, John Deere, Advanced Medical Optics and BAVARIA Yachts. The company was founded in 1972 by Charles W. Pelly in Malibu, California, and acquired by BMW Group in 1995. Since 2004, President Verena C. Kloos has led DesignworksUSA’sstrategy and operations, which now include design studios in Los Angeles, Munich and Singapore. With global resources and clients across a spectrum of forward-thinking industries, DesignworksUSA has an unparalleled understanding of consumers and the world of design that surrounds them, both today and many years into the future. www.designworksusa.com
About Landscape Forms
Landscape Forms is the industry’s leader in design and manufacture of site furniture, outdoor lighting and accessories, and was recently named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top 15 Small Workplaces in the United States. Since its founding in 1969 the company has earned a reputation for excellent design, high quality products and exceptional service. Clients include municipalities; transit centers; corporate, college and health care campuses; and familiar brand leaders like Boeing, Cisco Systems, Disney, Sprint, American Airlines, Herman Miller and Nike. The Landscape Forms U.S. headquarters is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The company has sales offices throughout North America, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Japan and Southern Europe.
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