UK street furniture supplier Bailey Artform has been announced
as winners of a design competition that is literally out of this world!
Cheshire based Bailey Artform entered a global completion
launched by MARS ONE the non-profit organisation that is planning to land the
first humans onto Mars and establish a permanent human colony there by 2027. MARS
ONE were looking to commission a bench that could be installed on the surface
of the Martian landscape
The Design Brief
This unique design brief and eventual location setting
meant that whilst creating a bench with a futuristic, space age aesthetic was
desirable, it wasn't the most important success criteria
In order to even be considered in the first place, all
proposed seating solutions had to follow a demanding and stringent list of
highly technical, material specification criteria to ensure they could
withstand the unique atmospheric conditions upon the desert plains of Mars,
where surface temperature
varies from minus 87 to minus 5 degrees and winds speeds are regularly in
excess of 60 miles per hour
The Solution
Step forward the Strata Bench, supplied by Bailey Artform
which perfectly met both criteria with style and ease
As you can see, the beautiful angular Strata Bench looks
like something could easily be seen in an episode of Star Trek, yet not so
unworldly that it wouldn't fit straight into in any modern urban setting
But the real genius is the unique material that the bench
is made from... "Meldstone"
MeldStone is a material that has been engineered using
state of the art Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) technology innovations
in chemistry, mixing, moulding and curing methods, making it possible to cast
thinner cross sections with higher abrasion resistance and lower permeability
than ever before. MeldStone has also been designed for use as a UV stable
outdoor material which will be essential on the radiation battered plains of
Mars
Houston we have a
problem...
However despite the fantastic news of winning the
competition, it's not all been plain sailing, as group Marketing Director Paul
Garratt explains...
"Well it was kind of a pain in the backside for the
marketing team if I'm honest, in so much
as we had just putting the finishing touches to what had been months of work,
in creating an entire marketing campaign and 1000'a of brochures around the
strapline - "The Sky's the limit! - which literally just isn't the case now as
this bench will be getting taken way past the stratosphere, through the thermosphere,
through the exosphere and off to earths nearest planet in the solar system
which is 34 million miles away!
So it's back to the drawing for the marketing team,
again! But this is just typical. We complete a campaign and then some idiot
decides to have a brain wave at the last minute and it's like...'can you just
forget everything you've just worked on for 2 months'...but no other than that,
it's great we won"
But perhaps the biggest difficulties lie ahead, due to Bailey
Artform falling foul to small print in one of their own sales promotions when signing the deal with MARS ONE.
Managing Director Ian Bailey explains...
"Well
during the month of March we decided to offer free installation on any of the
Strata benches sold. We completely forgot about this clause when signing the
deal for one bench with the MARS ONE team. I thought they were actually joking
when they requested they get free installation but no, they were quite serious.
So, a deal is a deal and as a man of my word I am now in the uncomfortable
position of having to decide which one of the installation team are going to go
out on this job, which I am told is a one way mission."
Further details of the Strata Bench can be seen here on
the Bailey Artform website http://bit.ly/19IplXU
