City Blocks Urban Furniture is a leading designer and manufacturer of street furniture available internationally and manufactured in both the United States and Canada.
Our work spans North America and has shaped public spaces in San Francisco, Vancouver and New York City.
We believe cities belong to everyone. That’s why our modus operandi is designing and building urban space for all.
In 2020, City Blocks was born out of asking how we could reconnect, reshape, reclaim and reimagine more urban spaces for people. Our answer was, we solve this by designing the places where people's lives come together to eat, sit, talk, and play, so we don’t just make furniture. We shape the city around us.
City Blocks are designed to be tough, adaptable, and unapologetically public. Cities are always in flux, streets are ever changing and urban life moves fast. City Blocks Urban Furniture is designed with those principles in mind.
We ask how we can make the most impact on our cities and the least impact on our planet. We select our materials with diligent care that is reflected in our products, which are circular by design, adaptive to environments and present flexible uses.
We are believers in the power of public art, when we started City Blocks we imagined the worlds of street art and street furniture colliding. It was Keith Haring that said “Art is For Everybody, this spirit and belief carries forward in our work.
We launched our public art initiative “Art for Everyone” to collaborate with artists in the places we design and build, providing a lasting impact that promotes culture, identity and wellbeing in public spaces. By inviting others to collaborate on our street furniture as a canvas we can open a dialog about urban spaces for everyone and belonging in our cities.
City Blocks is designed and manufactured by Meanwhile, a registered B corp working on designing, shaping and building public spaces.
As a benefit corporation, we hold ourselves accountable to more than profit. Our measure of success is people, planet, and place. Fewer blank spaces, more human ones. More connection. More creativity. More unity in public spaces.
City Blocks Urban Furniture. Urban Space For All.
Meanwhile is an international design studio for the present tense of public spaces,Designing products and places that shape how we live, connect, and share public space in cities and was founded in 2013 by CEO and creative director, Chris Charest.
Meanwhile's work is rooted in re-imagining how we design and activate our urban spaces for people, uniting them to foster a sense of belonging for all who use them, no matter how humble the place. Meanwhile designs for the present tense asking how can we shape our urban spaces and cities responding to now.
Meanwhile represents our commitment to impact with a triple bottom line operating philosophy and became a certified B-Corp in 2025 which underscores our work making positive impacts in the urban spaces we design which shape our everyday lives and experiences.
For over a decade, Meanwhile has been at the forefront of transforming urban landscapes with our projects, blending industrial design with creative place led solutions that deliver thriving destination projects that empower communities to unite and share meaningful experiences.
As the designer of City Blocks Urban Furniture, Meanwhile has created a platform of modular, adaptive, and customizable place based tools, more than urban furniture they are building blocks for better cities, designed to enhance the experience of our shared environments.
City Blocks also launched our Art for Everyone program with a focus on bringing public art to often overlooked objects and spaces reinforcing our belief that shared spaces everywhere should spark joy, wonder, hope and a feeling of safety.
Meanwhile is found ever-present in its civic installations with work spanning across North America from the bustling energy of Downtowns like San Francisco and Vancouver to the quiet corners of brownstone lined neighborhood open streets programs in Brooklyn, NYC along with the neighborhood street plazas programs in Vancouver.
While also providing destination tourism and amenity experiences in iconic destinations like Granville Island, Toronto and Vancouver Island. Meanwhile is headquartered in Vancouver, BC and is led by creative director and CEO, Chris Charest whose vision continues to push the boundaries of global urban design in public spaces and the future of cities built for people. With every project, Meanwhile is setting a new standard for what it means to make cities work better for everyone while leaving a lasting testament of building urban spaces for all.
Studio Meanwhile and City Blocks has the privilege of working from the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō (Sto:lo), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, also known as Vancouver, British Columbia. While this is our local home, we recognize that our work extends into the global realm of public space and has an impact on contested, politicised lands that have been and continue to be stewarded by many different and distinct local groups. It is our intention to help elevate these spaces in respectful and honourable collaboration with those who inhabit them, to further our mission to make public space available and accessible, for all people.
