Social Seating-Tables and Chairs

 


Studies have shown that conversations are easier with social seating. . If you're park does not have any social seating, you might consider applying for a grant to get some...


Several years ago, a talented and perceptive physician
named Humphry Osmond was asked to direct a large health
and research center in Saskatchewan. His hospital was one
of the first in which the relationship between semifixed-feature
space and behavior was clearly demonstrated. Osmond had
noticed that some spaces, like railway waiting rooms, tend to
keep people apart. These he called sociofugal spaces. Others,
such as the booths in the old-fashioned drugstore or the tables
at a French sidewalk cafe, tend to bring people together.
 These he called sociopetal. 
  from: The hidden dimension - Edward Twitchell Hall

 The psychologist Robert Sommer was asked by Osmond to learn about the relationship of furniture to conversations. Sommer studied the way people interacted over a 36 x 72 table...

 D                                     F

  

F-A Across the corner

C-B Side by side
C-D Across the table
E-A From one end to the other
E-F Diagonally the length of the table
C-F Diagonally across the table

 

Fifty observational sessions in which conversations were
counted at controlled intervals revealed that: F-A (cross corner)
conversations were twice as frequent as the C-B (side
by side) type, which in turn were three times as frequent as
those at C-D (across the table). No conversations were observed
by Sommer for the other positions. In other words,
corner situations with people at right angles to each other produced
six times as many conversations as face-to-face situations
across the 36-inch span of the table, and twice as many
as the side-by-side arrangement. The results of these observations suggested a solution to
the problem of gradual disengagement and withdrawal of the
old people.  link

 

Social seating in your space not only allows for better conversations, it also allows for other activities that you can't do on a bench.

 

  In the picture above a table and chairs allows for chess playing, below for a game of scrabble. 

 Please note: This is a new idea not yet funded