Much has been written on the importance placed on outdoor public space and how they are essential to creating a healthy society. A component of such spaces are areas for staying, where people can either watch the world go by or create opportunities to interact with others. However, it would appear that in some areas, bureaucratic trends target and remove seating areas, such as benches, in an attempt to remove loitering, houseless activity and crimes. This raises the question is it really the goal to make our rural and urban environmental spaces feel unwelcoming and benches used as tools of exclusion. The following pictures attempt to better understand how benches are used in public, urban and rural settings and visually explores and questions, if these pieces of public furniture are as important as one might suggest.Could they be used as a positive tool to minimise the polarisation between beliefs by encouraging people to inhabit and interact with others through them.
