As a student at the Royal College of Art in 2000, product designer Mil Stricevic had a simple thought: what was the story behind the carved dedications, often in memory of an individual, which adorn so many of the benches found in public places? What was special about this particular spot? Why this viewpoint? Coinciding with the emergance of MP3 technology (and preceding Apple's iPod be some years), it seemed that the solid state audio storage format would allow audio content to be physically integrated into the furniture, thereby creating the potential for a publicly accessible soundtrack embedded onto a particular view - a Sonic Vista.

The first Sonic Vista project (below, in situ at Richmond Park, London) was a memorial bench for the musician (and fellow RCA alumnus) Ian Dury; the title of one of his best-loved tracks, Reasons to be Cheerful, carved into the back rest to announce its intent.

Powered by solar panels set into the armrests, the audio is accessed by plugging in one's own headphones to a graphically-marked socket. Plugging in starts the soundtrack playing from the start and unplugging turns the player off. Thats it.