Landscape Forms announces a fourth and innovative addition to its popular STRATA line, the modular STRATA Beam expansion seating solution.

Designer Jess Sorel combines boldness and subtlety in the STRATA Beam’s interaction of materials—the strength of cast concrete is contrasted by the warmth of slatted wood surfaces. "As a whole, STRATA Beam offers the warmth and beauty of wood that people relate to, juxtaposed with Meldstone structural anchors that are thin in profile and sculptural in form,” says Chief Creative Officer, Kirt Martin. “Now with the modular STRATA Beam expansion, the already architectural presence grows to create runs and configurations that you couldn’t achieve in the past—U-shapes, zig-zags, crosses and fully enclosed hexagons and octagons just to name a few. It’s limitless.”

The STRATA Beam expansion enables designers and landscape architects to join STRATA Beam benches across a diverse array of configurations using Meldstone ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) bridge legs and three different angle connectors in 90°, 60° and 45°. Like other STRATA Beam benches, STRATA Beam expansion benches can be specified backed or backless and with any combination of end and intermediate arms.

Adding a modular dimension to the STRATA line reflects designers’ increasing desire for more adaptable site furnishings and more creative freedom to respond both functionally and aesthetically to site characteristics. "We’re enabling designers to create and build out their own kind of environments, assign their own social pinch points and stopping points, and arrive at an aesthetic that is uniquely their own,” says Senior Landscape Forms Designer, Brian Revoir.

The STRATA Beam expansion is supported by a detailed Planning Guide, offering examples of the different ways in which seating can be configured using the new modular system. The guide is by no means exhaustive, but rather a jumping off point intended to familiarize landscape architects with the mechanics and possibilities of how STRATA Beam’s new modular components work together.