The Importance of Durability

With the spotlight on resilient and liveable cities, we'll explore two key aspects of durability in the built environment – enduring facades and robust street furniture. More than ever before, the focus is on design and specification that benefits our planet and its people.

In response, here at Axalta, we’ve been focusing on developing our SuperDurable coatings. Designed to maximise the operational life of building and product components including facades, the range employs a super durable polyester resin system with higher-grade pigments and stabilisers. Offering a new level of durability and longevity, SuperDurable is designed to enhance the lifespan of our cities.

Facades of the future: resilience and durability

From early civilisations onwards, buildings have sheltered people from the forces of nature. In a post-climate change world, the durability demands on building envelopes are escalating – with a new emphasis on protecting occupants from extreme weather in cities that combine liveability with resilience.

With increasing changes in temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation and wind speed, there’s no doubt that our buildings and cities are facing unprecedented challenges from the weather.

Across the world designers and engineers are exploring new solutions for facades of the future. Contributing to city resilience at the level for individual buildings as well as collectively, we see nature-inspired holistic design solutions, the reinvention of air-handling systems and new performance benchmarks for facade design.

The buildings we create today need enhanced resilience from day one while performing consistently in the long term to resist the effects of extreme weather events and minimise operational carbon.

Park benches: the most durable urban furniture

Offering somewhere to sit and watch the world go by, the bench is key to placemaking in cities. And it needs to balance durability and usability with inclusivity and aesthetics – while embedding a sense of civic identity.

Outside seating has been integral to urban planning since the Ancient Greeks. In the industrial era urban seating flourished as cities expanded and new manufacturing techniques allowed mass production of benches in cast iron. Today, a city’s benches remain integral to its personality – think of New York’s ‘Central Park Settees’ in distinctive ‘Central Park Green’.

Urban furniture faces constant challenges in all weather. It’s known that sitting in nature for half an hour can significantly reduce stress, but in reality, benches are used for ‘park bench workouts’, skateboard tricks or even as a place to sleep.

Ultimately, bench design needs to navigate regulating the use of the public space while offering a comfortable – and durable place where everyone is welcome to sit and enjoy shared space.

Alesta SuperDurable

Our Alesta SuperDurable range has been developed to perform in the most demanding situations, offering enhanced durability in the face of environmental challenges and the demands of constant use. Available in a wide selection of colours, textural effects and gloss levels with a warranty of up to 25 years, Alesta SD coatings are designed to enhance the life cycle of buildings and components in contexts of atmospheric aggression, severe weather and the extra tough demands of public space.

You can find out more here.