Purpose of this category is to offer the plans to make various park equipment, intended mainly for the passive recreational parks.

Parks can be used for the passive and active recreation. Parks for the passive recreational use are very peaceful places, usually used for walking, resting or picnicking. In the passive recreational parks a lot of attention is given to its natural appearance (trees, shrubs, lawns, plants). This kind of parks commonly consist of the green areas planted with various plants, intersected by paths with the park equipment (benches, trash receptacles) located nearby. Unlike them, the parks for active recreational use have separated areas designed for sport and recreation. These areas can be in form of terrains for various sports, spaces with outside recreation equipment, kids playgrounds, skateparks, etc.

Although the basic function of the park is to offer some sense of nature to the urban people, there are always various equipments; without them park would be just an open space, where people would not spent so much time. The park equipment includes various assemblies, such as benches, picnic tables, bike racks, trash receptacles, tree guards, bollards... Beside the park equipment, in parks you can also find playground structures or outside recreation equipment. You can find their plans in other categories of our website.

Park equipments are being installed not only in the parks, but also in many other public spaces, such as squares, spaces in front of the public institutions, between the buildings, universities, or in shopping malls. Park equipment can be also a very nice detail in private gardens and courtyards. On this page you will find mainly plans for the park equipment made of metal, suitable for the public places. If you are looking for plans for wooden benches or picnic tables, you can visit our garden equipment category, where you will find plans for similar assemblies (tables, benches) but made of wood.  

With the free woodworking project that you can download on this page you can make Contoured park bench. It's a perfect bench to sit on to enjoy your outdoor space.

Here you are offered a free woodworking plan according to which you can make one of the simplest possible garden seating set – Decorative wooden picnic table.

In the free welding project that is offered here you can find drawings to help you make simple metal park bench.

In this free metalworking project you can find drawings that can help you make a ‘wheelchair accessible picnic table’.

Parks are public areas or open spaces consisting of lawns and woodlands – the most relaxing landscape for human. They are located mainly nearby or inside the cities and towns (urban parks), and serve to give a sense of nature to the people that live there, but also for the recreation and relaxation. Natural areas used as parks can be protected in its natural or semi-natural state, but parks can also be entirely artificially made through planting of trees, shrubs and plants. Parks are usually under the local government jurisdiction which takes care of them and maintain them. The park maintenance includes grass mowing, planting trees and plants and taking care of them, installation and maintenance of park equipment and many other activities that allow people with urban lifestyle to sense a little bit of the natural beauty and tranquility in the park. In addition, the park as a natural green space is an important factor of the city air purification.

During designing or purchasing the park equipment, a several criteria should be followed:

  • City standard – big cities have standard requirements on how the park equipment should look like, which materials it should be made of, how they should be coated and mounted, etc. If you work or live in a city with such standards, you must follow these rules. And if you want to include the park equipment to your private property, then you can make your own decisions.

  • Durability – People use the park equipment intensively, and unfortunately there are also various hooligans, who can destroy park equipment. Because of these reasons, the construction of park equipment should be as simple as possible, and from the other hand, it has to be very solid.

  • Surface protection - Park equipment is usually installed outdoors where is exposed to various weather conditions, so it has to be protected against corrosion, and the maintenance need should be minimal. You can leave the park equipment in the color of metal, just coat the surface with the adequate protective coating, but commonly they are installed in the parks and painted with color to merge with the park. Besides the corrosion protection, the park equipment should be coated with the surface coating from which the graffiti can be easily removed.

  • Price - In most cases, the cost of commercial park equipment is high, and if you decided to construct these products on your own, you could find many ways to save a lot of money. Park equipment manufacturers have industrial machines (bending machines, powder coating equipment, welding robots, etc.) that help them to make these products quickly and efficiently. There are many simple solutions for saving money, for example: 1. if you do not have bending machine, you can make bends using the standard elbows, which you will weld on the pipes. 2. If you cannot protect the park equipment surface for example with the powder coating, you can paint it with the corrosion protective coat first, and then paint it with some metal paint.    

  • Usability – Large number of the people uses the park equipment mainly for rest and relaxation. Because of this, park equipment must be ergonomically designed, and design should be simple and functional. It must be suitable for use by people with a wide range of needs including children, the aged and  people with disabilities.

  • Safety – Different types of people use park equipment, so a special attention should be given to its safety. Park equipment must be free of sharp edges, surfaces which have contact with the humans should not be made out of metal, while metal can get very hot in the sun, and the fasteners cannot stick out from the construction.

 
Finally, they should have a low whole of life cost.  
 
Park equipment is usually industrially made in the so-called families, so the various models (bench, table...) in the same family have similar design, budget requirements, color, and application. Each product within a family has been designed and crafted to complement each other.

You can read detailed facts about materials for the park equipment and surface protection on our page: Outdoor steel structures and their protection from the elements.

Park equipment is usually fixed to the ground. There are several ways for mounting the park equipment – more about this subject can be found on our page: Mounting considerations for outdoor steel structures.

For each plan we gave you a suggestion for the type of mounting, but you can easily adjust the plan for some other type of mounting.