Summary
Designing nature reserves and provincial domains requires different choices than shaping an urban square. Managers look for calm, coherence and solutions that keep maintenance and replacement manageable over the long term. Alpine, a modular seating system from the Escofet collection, was developed from that reality. Thanks to its modular structure, EPD certification and options in recycled concrete, Alpine supports both sustainable policy objectives and practical management needs. This article explores how Alpine contributes to landscape integration, scalable management and circular principles in natural and green environments, without losing its relevance in urban settings.
Different Choices: City versus Nature
Furnishing nature reserves and provincial domains calls for a different approach than designing a city square. The focus is not on visibility or iconic statements, but on calm, coherence and long-term durability. Visitors come to slow down, sit for a moment, observe and experience the surroundings. Managers, in turn, look for solutions that enable this experience not only today, but also twenty years from now. The Alpine collection by Escofet emerged precisely from this tension between use and long-term management.
Landscape Integration
Alpine is not an urban object placed in a green setting by coincidence. Its design is deliberately restrained and landscape-oriented. The robust, stone-like concrete supports provide a stable base, while FSC®-certified wood adds warmth and tactility. Together, they create a bench that visually blends into wooded environments, open landscapes and quiet areas, without drawing attention to itself. The reference to mountainous landscapes is not a stylistic gesture, but a design intention centred on calm, mass and balance.
Scale and Uniformity
For managers of extensive sites, scale plays a decisive role. Uniformity contributes to recognisability and visual calm, both for visitors and for maintenance teams. Alpine offers clear advantages in this respect. With fixed modular lengths of 1.75 metres and 2.40 metres, a single product family can be deployed in a wide range of situations. Along walking routes, the benches function as discreet rest points, while in open areas or at viewpoints they can easily be combined into longer seating arrangements. This creates coherence across an entire site, without sacrificing flexibility.
Substantiated Sustainability
Within Servibo, sustainability is not an abstract concept, but something that must be measurable and substantiated. The Alpine collection is supported by an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), allowing its environmental impact to be objectively included in policy and management documents. Within this broader approach, Alpine makes use of certified material choices, including solutions from the Susterra range, which focus on recycled resources and a reduced environmental footprint.
Logistical Efficiency and CO₂ Reduction
Logistics are often an underestimated aspect of sustainability. Alpine is delivered fully dismantled. This demountable delivery reduces the required transport volume and contributes to more efficient logistics and a lower CO₂ footprint per installed element. Especially in large-scale projects, such as provincial domains or nature reserves with multiple rest points, this makes a tangible difference. In addition, the concrete supports are available in Eco-Grey®, composed of recycled aggregates from controlled waste streams. This approach extends circular thinking beyond the product itself to the wider supply chain.
Management and Service Life
Good management does not end at installation. Seating in natural environments must withstand intensive use, changing weather conditions and the passage of time. Alpine is designed with this perspective in mind. Thanks to its demountable construction, targeted maintenance is possible and individual components can be replaced when needed. This contributes to a longer service life and lower maintenance costs, making Alpine well suited to multi-year management plans and budgets where durability and manageability are key considerations.
Inclusivity as a Quality Standard
At the same time, the user remains an essential reference point for good design. With optional armrests, Alpine can be adapted for a broader audience, including older users and people with reduced mobility. In this way, the bench supports not only efficient management, but also a welcoming and inclusive experience of the landscape.
Rest points become places where different generations can pause for a moment, without compromising the natural character of the surroundings..
Coherence in Landscape and Management
The Alpine modular seating arrangements bring together landscape, policy and use in a coherent whole. Not as a striking object, but as a considered intervention that introduces calm and sustainability into public space and provides clarity in long-term management.
Read more
- Escofet and Environment Product Declarations
- ECO cast concrete by Escofet
- The different product models within the Alpine collection: