how do these things make it less [comfortable]?
You already answered your own question:
weird human-shaped things added on top of the vents
It’s hard to believe you’re not trolling.
https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/unpleasant-design-hostile-architecture/
I also came across some inventive designs that I haven’t seen elsewhere, such as metal silhouettes soldered on top of warm ventilation exhausts at a CTrain station (below), a place where you could consider camping for the night.
Metal silhouettes prevent homeless people from sleeping over these CTrain grates in Calgary.
I really doubt they’re trolling, it’s a real question. A person can clearly fit between the gaps and sleep.
It would block things like tents and mattresses, but it’s reasonable [edit: even if ignorant] to ask how it works if it doesn’t obstruct a sleeping person. For what it’s worth, in my city, it’s rare to see tents or even mattresses, usually just blankets and shopping carts.
Try sleeping on them and report back to us.
No need for that kind of talk, it’s as pointless as saying “Go there and prove you can’t sleep on them”.
It’s hard to believe you’re not trolling.
I swear I’m not. It’s entirely possible that I’m being slow, but I’m really just trying to understand so I can identify these things better in the future. Because I seriously don’t get it, there’s still plenty of room to lie down between them?
I think you’re confusing real life homelessness with a cartoon of a drunk who lies down to sleep it off for the night.
I assume what you’re implying is that you can’t put a tent there. Okay, why not fucking say that then? Homeless people around here rarely use tents, for reasons that I do not know because I am privileged enough to not be homeless, and they could probably just arrange their stuff around those shapes, put their mattress between them and go to sleep - which is why “tent” isn’t the first thing that popped into my head.
Thank you for making me jump through hoops to understand a thing.
I have seen a lot of homeless in downtown Toronto who have a cart or backpack of belongings, and sleep directly on the subway vents with no tent. I get what the other guy is asking, I also don’t see how these metal silhouettes are going to stop someone sleeping on that grate.
