How to Choose Site Furnishings for a City Park

Designing and developing a city park is a unique and rewarding experience. You have the ability to create a refreshing space in your community that will allow residents and visitors to gather together to enjoy an active lifestyle and to soak up the natural beauty of your region.

Whether you are looking to create a park with a playground for young children and picnic tables for families, or you are developing a natural preserve that will be a serene and peaceful space, you will want to choose the right site furnishings for your city park.

These tips will help you choose the best site furnishings for your community park:

1. Include Places to Sit and Rest

No matter the size and scope of your city park, it will be important for you to install places to sit and rest. Park seating is important for a variety of reasons, such as:

• Seating encourages people to rest and relax while they are at the park. Parks are designed to allow people to escape the hustle and bustle of their daily lives, but without an ability to sit back and take in the scenery, they won't be able to fully enjoy that experience.
• Appropriate Seating makes the park experience more accessible for everybody.
• Seating at your park helps to improve social connections within your community.

As you sift through the site furnishings that are available, you will find that park benches are the most convenient and affordable seating options. Not only are they cost-effective, but they also blend seamlessly in with the overall landscape design of your park. From benches with and without backs to geometric benches that can be customized to fit your unique park design, there are many options available for you to choose from.

2. Provide Shade to Increase Comfort

Regardless of the climate of your local community, you will want to create shade within your city park. Shady areas may be most important on those warm days in the summer, when people are looking to escape the heat and protect themselves from the sun's strong rays. But it also can play a vital role during the spring, fall and winter too. Shade can help with climate control in your park and can help increase the comfort for park visitors.

Planting trees is one way to create plenty of shade in your park, but trees do not always provide thorough and complete shade throughout the entire year. When the buds are just forming in the spring, for instance, a young tree is not going to provide much shade. Once the leaves have dropped in the fall, a barren tree will do little to provide comfortable areas to escape the sun.

In order to provide year-round shade, you can invest in site furnishings such as shade structures. Some of the most common types of shade structures include:

• Square Shade Covers — These are common shade covers that can be installed over picnic areas, playgrounds and more. They can create significant shade for a certain space.
• Shade Sails — These are flexible shade structures that can offer shade when needed to those who need a break from the sun.
• Umbrellas — Umbrellas that can be placed in picnic tables during the spring, summer and fall will help to provide those eating at the park with a shady spot to rest.

3. Install Trash Receptacles to Promote Cleanliness

Even though people of all ages know that littering is wrong and bad for the environment, you are more than likely going to find litter in your city park. However, when you choose the right site furnishings, you can significantly reduce the amount of litter in your green space and recreational area.

Some types of trash receptacles that you might consider include:

• Covered Trash Receptacles — Covered trash receptacles are particularly beneficial in parks, because they give people a place to put their trash while deterring animals from getting inside.
• Decorative Trash Receptacles — Depending on the location of your park and its overall purpose, you might consider a decorative trash receptacle to enhance the aesthetic of the space.
• Recycling Receptacles — These receptacles are clearly labeled and a great way to promote recycling in your community.

Purchasing trash receptacles as site furnishings is only the first step toward reducing the amount of litter in your park. You also will need to place them strategically throughout your park space. Make sure there are trash receptacles placed at crosswalk areas, common spaces, near food vendors and by park benches, as those are all places where people are likely to dispose of bottles, food wrappers and more.

4. Create Picnic Areas for Gathering and Entertaining

The site furnishings that you choose for your city park will have a large impact on the amount of people that use it throughout the year. City parks are often considered to be one of the best places for gatherings. Not only are citywide events held at these local outdoor spaces, but many residents will rent park pavilions and other areas in order to host their own private gatherings. From low-key picnics with friends to large-scale receptions, you will want to invest in the right site furnishings in order to create picnic areas inside your park.

Some of the best site furnishings for picnic areas include:

• Picnic Tables — Picnic tables are an essential park amenity, as they provide all park goers with a place to rest, eat a snack or a meal, and enjoy conversation with one another. Picnic tables come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including standard rectangle tables as well as round tables with attached chairs. It is important to incorporate ADA tables as well so that park visitor of all abilities can recreate comfortably.
• Park Grills — Park grills are a wonderful amenity to include in a city park, because they give local residents the ability to host a cookout at the park. Rotating grills add to the convenience of the park eating areas.

5. Add Hydration Areas for Health and Wellness

City parks are some of the best places to go to enjoy the great outdoors and to get some exercise, but that means that park patrons need to have access to fresh water. By prioritizing hydration areas, you will allow people to safely enjoy your park — no matter what the weather is outside or what type of weather they are enjoying. In fact, many people who are looking to jog along trails or do yoga in the park will only go to parks that have these kinds of amenities.

Water bottle filling stations are becoming an essential park feature, so you will want to have several of these site furnishings strategically installed in your park. With both wall-mount filling stations and standalone filling stations available, you can create the hydration areas that work best for your park's space and budget.

Find Site Furnishings for Your City Park at UltraSite

UltraSite has been manufacturing commercial site furnishing products for more than 20 years. Our products include picnic tables, benches, trash receptacles and more. Our signature thermo-plastic coating makes our products durable and low maintenance. Contact us today to get started on your next project!