Spark

The city customized just for you

The responsive street furniture project aims to create a city that adapts to your needs but only when you're around.
A woman passes an audio information bollard that automatically gives her personalized information without her needing to do a thing. (rossatkin.com)

Imagine you have trouble navigating your urban environment. What if you could customize the street furniture around you so it changes to support your needs when you're nearby? That's what designer and engineer, Ross Atkin is hoping to realize with his responsive street furniture project.

Ross has working prototypes of things like customizing brighter street lights, seats that unlock and drop down from bollards (or posts) on the sidewalk, as well as provide verbal descriptions of buildings for visually impaired people.