I was waiting in line for a craft show the other day, there was a lot of concrete around, so it was hot. Above our heads was a cool breeze, just out of reach.

I propose a wing, with motorized articulation, mounted on a high enough streetlight, be used to deflect down some of that cooling stuff. Power would be readily available.

Taking this a step further, optic fiber connected wings right throughout the city could be collectively used to change the airflow dynamics of the city. A supercomputer and an array of sensors, correctly coded by some flow engineers, would be doing all of the tricky wing positioning.

Could the sum effect be made greater than all those tiny effects?
-- wjt, Dec 10 2014

opticfiber seems overkill, when normal wifi IoT sensors/servos could do just as well. Not like you need milisecond precision.

Still if done right, could look quite pretty. And with the right algorithms, can look quite organic.

Maintenance cost will be quite annoying.
-- mofosyne, Dec 10 2014


Trees?
-- pocmloc, Dec 10 2014


I like this scheme for preventing leaves / trash from accumulating in front of my property.
-- bungston, Dec 10 2014


Powerful and programmable wind director foils could be used by members of the law enforcement community to control the flow of, say, tear gas into, say, a pro-democracy protest - the architecture being used against people, in an active rather than passive manner.
-- calum, Dec 11 2014


Cycling around a grid-pattern US city brings occasional problems with wind*. In European cities, the streets meander in a much less direct and purposeful way, meaning that instead of blasting down a miles-long arrow straight concrete canyon into me, it ends up turning 90 degrees, 352 degrees or just stopping completely. Much better for the chilly cyclist. I like how lamp-post aerofoils could be used to manipulate wind... preferably in the direction of traffic for fuel savings.

*Both kinds
-- bs0u0155, Dec 11 2014



random, halfbakery