Abstract
Street furniture such as benches, streetlamps, and shades which are easily accessible in cities has contributed to the promotion of active, lively environment for people living in cities. Furthermore, they make the characteristics of specific regions and cities, and are valued as a communication interface to restore the relationships between people and cities. The street furniture design with inherent publicness is an essential element for leisurely life and refined image of modern people who have experienced severance and mental poverty in uniform, vertical modern city space with the development of advanced science and technology. The purpose of this study is to analyze the new design approaches to street furniture which plays an important role in the determination of the images of modern city environment and to examine the characteristics and trends of such designs. First, in accordance with the flow of studies from publicness and public space to street furniture, the concept and meaning of publicness which is the basic element of public space were identified through theoretical examination, and the characteristics and roles of modern public space were analyzed through literature review, data review, and international cases. Based on the results of this theoretical analysis, the concept and meaning elements, function elements, and design elements of the street furniture which was planned in accordance with the goal and functions of public space were identified. For the meaning elements of street furniture design, fun, health, culture, sustainability, and vitalization were identified. For the function elements of street furniture design, convenience, safety, and delivery were identified. As the characteristics of modern street furniture design, convergent, green, digilog, functional, and universal designs were analyzed. This study is meaningful in that it recognized the roles of street furniture in modern public space as a concrete, practical environmental design element and estimated the development directions of street furniture design in public space.