Urban Fire Benches – Bloor Street Transformation

To animate and enhance user engagement in the evening, this 1km section of a prominent downtown street was in need of a unique solution to resolve an absence of street furniture and lack of quality, engaging lighting. The existing tree uplighting power infrastructure had to be used to avoid expensive and time consuming re-circuiting and sidewalk modification, and so the locations were fixed. A large-scale interactive lighting installation was proposed that cleverly combines place making with colourful programmable lighting in a custom piece now known as “The Firepit Bench”. The idea of a bench in an urban environment wrapping the trees came to mind literally while sitting around a fire, and the thought was, what if this celebration of light could be experienced on the street? This engaging and inviting installation interacts with pedestrians and weaves seamlessly into the existing streetscape, adding color and excitement. A magical place to sit, be warmed and entertained by the light, and feel connected to the streetlife.