In 2001 Vägverket in Sweden launched a design competition, the aim of which was to develop a family of road furniture products for use in and near built up areas. The idea was to raise the level of design, bearing in mind that these are places where people come much closer to road furniture than out on the motorways.

This included products like sign gantries, sign and light posts, barriers and noise protection. The elements were to have a unified form and expression and fulfil all the safety and architectural requirements for such products.

Designer Henning Solfeldt and dev. manager Oddbjørn Nes (Ørsta Stål AS)

The Dane Henning Solfeldt of PLH Design won the competition and has worked closely with product development manager Oddbjørn Nes and his colleagues at Ørsta Stål to turn his ideas into reality. Both Solfeldt and Nes stress the importance of beginning the partnership between designer and manufacturer early in the process.

“For us as manufacturers it is important to get on board early so that we can be sure the designer’s ideas can be realised within the framework we are working with. We safeguard the designer’s intentions and we don’t mess with the overall design concept,” stresses Oddbjørn Nes.

“With this commission, in addition to the purely aesthetic side, it has been important to maintain the safety aspects and here our collaboration with Ørsta Stål has been useful to us,” adds Henning Solfeldt.

“At Ørsta Stål we have learned a lot from this process, because many demands had to be satisfied: the designer’s requirements for form, the authorities’ requirements for safety and our own requirements for cost effective production and product lifetime,” says Oddbjørn Nes.

Ørsta Stål will be supplying all steel products for this project, including lamp posts, sign posts and gantries, road and bridge barriers with various screening sections and noise screening.

Read more about the SAFELINE product series here.