Designed and delivered in 2015 through the collaboration of designers TCL and Troppo Architects for the City of Charles Sturt, Henley Square is an important “littoral zone”, where an important cultural space meets the expansive natural qualities of the Gulf.

Spark’s brief for this project included manufacture and delivery of custom wall-top and freestanding furniture elements, outdoor dining settings, and durable bin enclosures.

Design development and fabrication of a 30-metre long undulating, timber clad seating structure, affectionately named the “Ripple Lounge” as well as organic looking washed-up elements called the “Flotsam” were also designed to be a focal point of the Square.

Taking on this considerable challenge, Spark’s skilled industrial design team devised an intricate 316 stainless steel structure, divided into transportable units, that would support hundreds of timber battens and create the rolling form of the Ripple Lounge.

Accurate and detailed production drawings were essential to ensuring consistency in manufacture across this complex structure, which integrates with the jetty walkway and extends to the square.

Dotted around the Henley Square water feature, sit several organic benches. Their amorphic shapes are designed to be indicative of flotsam that might have washed up from the.

Originally envisaged in stainless steel rolled rod, it was Spark that suggested glass reinforced concrete (GRC) as a budgetary option. Sprayed into multiple molds the individual segments are joined together to form the long and intriguing benches.