Social Spaces – Melbourne

Introduction

The City of Melbourne is using data and insights to design public spaces that meet the needs of their communities.

Sensors installed on and around a new ‘social spaces chair’ are generating data insights, helping council to understanding of how people live, work, and play in the area and to support public space design.

Challenge

To deliver great public spaces, we need to understand how people interact with and travel through different parts of our cities and towns.

The City of Melbourne wanted to know:

whether people changed how they used neighbourhoods change during the COVID-19 pandemic

how public spaces could better accommodate the needs of new communities
the designs that make urban street furniture successful.

Solution

The City of Melbourne answering these questions using insights from data collected in public places.

After a period of research and public consultation, a ‘social spaces chair’ was installed in the popular Lygon Street area.

The chair is made from natural timber and green powder-coated steel (see photos below). With two spots to sit, the chair design considered safety and supporting diverse uses of the space.

The site was selected based on high level of foot traffic, opportunities for improvement, existing sensor data and the applicability to other locations in Melbourne.

The chair is fitted with sensors to collect data and understand:

peaks and troughs in activity
transport modes used to visit the space
the amount of time people spend using the chair.

In the same location, an existing metal bench, with a standard bench design is equipped with the same sensing technology. This helps draw insights about differing uses of the public space and appeal of different furniture designs.

The community can access a real-time dashboard online, so they can engage with the technology.

Two additional sites have also been equipped with the same sensor technology.

Council is deriving insights from the data to inform future public space development.

The project is a collaboration between the City of Melbourne, Inhabit Place, Spark Furniture, Altometer and Rowlands Metalworks.

The project is part of the Emerging Technology Testbed, an initiative from the Melbourne’s smart city strategy.

Outcomes

Smart Places Outcomes area

collaboration and connection
equity, accessibility and inclusion
health and well-being
safety and security.

Data collected since 1 February 2023 demonstrates that the social spaces chair has been used six times more often than the traditional bench, showing that the design of public street furniture can encourage people to dwell and improve their experience in public spaces.

Insights gained from this pilot are also being used to inform the design of new and upgraded public spaces.