Plug & Plop: Urban Add-Ons Turn Street-Side Bollards into Seats & Tables

Designed to act as barriers, bollards are a common sight in cities around the world — but what if they could engage rather than just separate?

This series of simple additions from Teratoma dubbed PLUG A SEAT aim to transform (or at least extend) the function of the bollard, converting rows of columns into arrays of seating and table space.

The lacquered aluminum surfaces add a bit of color along with functionality, and have a variety of potential applications — they could be affixed permanently, or added temporarily by individuals eating lunch downtown, or deployed during street festivals.

These extenders can also be sized to fit different dimensions of bollard for different metropolitan areas (though one might hope that a future iteration could be able to expand and contract on demand).

In the grander scheme, these kinds of simple guerrilla furniture designs highlight potential new uses for old extant infrastructure. And who knows: maybe bollards will start to lose their original function as self-driving cars take to the streets, but instead of being removed could find second lives serving other purposes.