Portuguese 
English 
Spanish 
4 min of reading 
0 comments 
The Santa Helena Park, in Tijucas, will be inaugurated this Sunday (26) as the first public park in Brazil to have smart benches equipped with solar-powered chargers. The space has more than 15 thousand square meters, free entry, and a program with music, a creative fair, yoga, and activities for children and pets throughout the day.
The municipality of Tijucas, in Greater Florianópolis, is about to inaugurate a space that combines leisure, technology, and sustainability in a unique format in the country. The Santa Helena Park opens its doors this Sunday with a proposal that goes beyond the lawn and walking paths: smart benches equipped with chargers powered by solar energy allow any visitor to charge their phone for free while enjoying the park. According to the municipality, this is the first public park in Brazil to offer this type of technological infrastructure integrated into urban furniture.
With more than 15 thousand square meters, Santa Helena Park is the largest urban park in Tijucas and was developed by Terraza Urbanismo as part of a project that aims to position the city as a reference in smart urbanism in Santa Catarina. The inauguration will be marked by the Samba & Raiz event, with a free program from 10 AM to 7 PM that includes musical performances, a creative economy fair, yoga classes, children’s theater, a food truck area, face painting, a pet area, and an exhibition of vintage cars.
How smart benches powered by solar energy work
The main differentiator of the Santa Helena Park lies in its furniture. The smart benches installed throughout the space have photovoltaic panels that capture solar energy and convert it into electricity to power USB ports integrated into the structure. In practice, the visitor sits on the bench, connects their phone cable, and charges the device at no cost while resting or chatting. The process is silent, clean, and does not depend on conventional outlets or connection to the electrical grid.
-
While in Brazil the bullet train between São Paulo and Rio never got off the ground, California already has 130 kilometers of completed viaduct, 16,700 jobs created, and is installing tracks for trains at 350 km/h.
-
Nearly 1,600 meters below the surface of South Dakota, workers removed 800,000 tons of rock and built two giant caverns without a single serious accident — inside them, scientists will install the world’s largest underground cryogenic detector.
-
Santa Catarina wants to compete with China with a glass walkway at 686 meters high, which would be the tallest in the world, in a city adjacent to Balneário Camboriú, where only 100 people currently visit per week.
-
Brazil spent R$ 1.9 billion on a giant bridge to Paraguay, and it is already finished, but no one can use it properly because the access points are not ready, and traffic remains blocked months later.
Technology is not new in the world, but its application in a public park in Brazil is unprecedented. European and North American cities already use urban furniture with solar capture in squares and promenades, but in Brazil, the concept had not yet reached public spaces permanently. The choice of Tijucas as a pioneering city is surprising because it is a medium-sized municipality, which demonstrates that innovation in urbanism does not need to be restricted to capitals or large centers.
What Parque Santa Helena offers beyond technology
According to information released by the portal NSC, the solar energy in the benches is the standout feature, but the park was designed to function as a complete urban coexistence space. There are more than 15,000 square meters with areas designated for walking, practicing physical activities, and connecting with nature, in a municipality that until now had limited options for outdoor leisure on this scale.
The urban project was conceived with a focus on the integration between infrastructure, green areas, and public spaces. Parque Santa Helena is not an isolated garden: it is part of a planning that connects the park to the urban surroundings, including access roads, lighting, and landscaping that interact with the Altos de Santa Helena subdivision, whose first phase will also be delivered at the same inauguration event.
The free programming of the inauguration event
The opening of the park will be celebrated with the Samba & Raiz event, which offers free programming open to the public throughout Sunday. The attractions include live musical performances, a creative economy fair with local artisans and producers, outdoor yoga classes, and children’s theater, creating a program that caters to families with young children as well as those seeking cultural and gastronomic experiences.
The gastronomic space will feature food trucks, and there will be areas dedicated to pets, face painting for children, and interactive challenges. The exhibition of vintage cars completes the activity lineup, reinforcing the intention to transform the inauguration into a community event that marks the park’s opening in the city’s memory. Entry is free and does not require prior registration or tickets.
What the inauguration in Tijucas represents for Santa Catarina
The arrival of a public park with smart benches powered by solar energy places Tijucas on a map that until now was dominated by larger cities when it comes to technological urbanism. The proposal from Terraza Urbanismo is to position the municipality as a reference in Santa Catarina, demonstrating that investments in sustainable technology can be viable even in cities with smaller budgets and sizes than the capitals.
For the local community, the impact is direct. Residents gain a large leisure space with infrastructure that did not exist in the city, in addition to a gathering point that integrates nature, technology, and accessibility. The fact that the chargers operate on solar energy eliminates operational electricity costs for the maintenance of the benches, making the model financially sustainable in the long term. The experience of Tijucas can serve as a reference for other municipalities in Santa Catarina and Brazil that seek to modernize their public spaces without relying solely on municipal budget resources.
Would you like your city to have a park with smart benches powered by solar energy, or do you think there are more urgent priorities for public money? Let us know in the comments if you plan to visit Parque Santa Helena and what you think about this type of technology in public spaces.
Seja o primeiro a reagir!