As both a site of active urban transformation and a catalyst for public participation in city-building, The Bentway’s unique microclimate presents an opportunity to investigate responsive architecture and its impact on visitors’ outdoor thermal comfort.

Open linear urban spaces like The Bentway often suffer from poor wind design, which creates conditions for reinforced wind speed patterns and colder and less comfortable environments. Adaptive Artifacts responds to the changing conditions present at The Bentway and investigates how natural systems, computers, and specialized fabrication processes can work together to create spaces that are more adaptive, responsive, and resilient.

 

The project will be deployed in multiple phases beginning with Adaptive Artifacts: Weather Stations, which includes a series on-site sculptural elements collecting environmental data to establish a baseline and defining targets. This phase of the project is also accompanied by a website and smartphone app that enables users to provide feedback about their physical experience, and review anonymized data to better understand environmental phenomena. A “digital twin” of the project will allow users to playfully reconfigure the artifacts to observe their predicted effect on the environment.