INTERVIEW WITH GRIJSEN

Grijsen is a supplier of high-quality and stylish street furniture. The quality of the street furniture is a top priority at Grijsen. Grijsen has a diverse range, ranging from waste bins to outdoor benches and from picnic sets to tree grates. All extremely suitable for outdoor use in public spaces.

Grijsen is convinced that a good design of public space contributes to the quality of a city or village. Good street furniture gives people energy and brings people closer together. The users of our street furniture, for example residents or visitors of a place, must experience pleasure, comfort and security. Grijsen achieves this by putting people first and by offering sustainable, innovative and characteristic solutions. The design, functionality and location of the park and street furniture can make an important contribution to this.

The company started purchasing street furniture more than thirty years ago and over time has also started producing street furniture itself. The trading company has grown into a real production company with its own warehouse, workshop and skilled staff.

Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?

GRIJSEN: Grijsen can call itself a specialist in the field of street furniture. With over thirty years of experience and hundreds of completed projects, Grijsen knows how to supply suitable furniture for every outdoor space. This can be furniture from the standard range, but Grijsen is certainly not up to a custom solution. In fact, Grijsen likes a challenge and likes to look with a client at which interpretation of an outdoor space is most suitable. If this requires furniture to be developed, that is possible.

Grijsen has provided street furniture for almost every imaginable outdoor space. For example, for city centres, schoolyards, company gardens, parks and so on.

Grijsen produces a large part of the street furniture himself. Where the steelwork is still supplied by our partners from the region, the woodworking is done entirely in our own workshop. In this way, Grijsen has a lot of control over the quality of the furniture.

E.E: What’s the news about new products?

GRIJSEN: The latest series from Grijsen is the Retro series. The Retro series is characterized by a style from the past, but with a modern twist. The line of street furniture was designed for a project in the German village called Alpen. In this project, the public space was transformed into a shared living room. The Retro single seat bench forms the basis of this line: stylish and chic. The furniture is made of powder-coated steel and is finished with a seat and backrest made of tropical hardwood.

To create even more living room feeling, it is possible to combine the Retro single seat with the Retro coffee table. Two Retro sofas and a Retro coffee table together form the Retro Lounge set. This makes it possible to create a beautiful, atmospheric living room in the public space. A suitable place to gather, meet and relax. To complete it, there is also a matching bollard and bicycle bracket within the Retro series.

E.E: What are the ranges of products?

GRIJSEN: Grijsen’s range is very extensive. The product categories are:

  • Litter bins;
  • Outdoor benches;
  • Picnic sets;
  • Tree benches;
  • Tree grates;
  • Bollards;
  • Bicycle parking;
  • Planters;
  • Information pillars;
  • Insect hotels.

However, the focus of Grijsen is mainly on the top two series, the litter bins and outdoor benches. These are the largest product categories of Grijsen and also the best-selling products. After all, every outdoor space need waste bin to keep things clean and outdoor benches offer people a place to rest in the open air.

E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?

GRIJSEN: The street furniture market is a constant market. As long as residents of a city like to move into the city, there is a need for street furniture. After all, litter bins keep the city clean of litter, outdoor benches provide the necessary seating, bollards keep motorized traffic from places with many pedestrians and planters provide enough greenery on the street.

E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?

GRIJSEN: Two are currently one or two major developments within the market. Sustainability and climate adaptation are important themes.

For example, more and more municipalities are focusing on sustainable solutions. This is reflected in the demand for sustainable solutions in public space. Increasingly, the degree of sustainability is an important factor in the choice of a supplier of street furniture.

In addition, climate adaptation is an important theme within the market. More and more cities are focusing on greening outdoor spaces and combating urbanization. Increasingly, solutions are being sought for public space where plants and trees are part of the outdoor space. For example, individual planters are more often placed or planters are combined with seating elements.

E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?

GRIJSEN: More and more cities are getting ‘smarter’. They use technology to work smarter and more efficiently. Think, for example, of fill level sensors that measure how full waste bins are and whether they need to be emptied.

Technology is becoming more and more accessible to the municipality to apply and can actually provide municipalities with an advantage. There is also room for ‘smart’ products in the street furniture market.

E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?

GRIJSEN: The expectations for the coming year are not much different from the current situation in 2021. Developments such as sustainability and climate adaptation will also be at the top of the priority list of municipalities in 2022 and the market will have to respond to this. In addition, Grijsen has found a number of partners in various European countries in the past year.

Grijsen expects to spend a lot of time thinking along with clients in the coming year for beautiful and green designs for outdoor spaces. Undoubtedly, the necessary planters, waste bins and outdoor benches will also be placed in cities in the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere in Europe from our workshop in Winterswijk next year.