Softer City, the Bentway?s summer exhibition with free public art in Toronto, brings together artists, architects, and designers from the city, across Canada, and beyond.
The exhibition aims to explore softness “as a means of humanizing cities, connecting communities, and creating space for collective repair.”

Photo credit: Soft Fits – The Bentway
Soft Fits is a site-specific installation by Brooklyn-based WIP Collaborative in collaboration with local youth. It is situated under the trees at the edge of The Bentway Studio Terrace and is a project that was designed with teenagers in mind, and the ways that they interact with public space.
As a result, WIP Collaborative worked closely with local youth to create an inviting and inclusive environment that “blurs the boundaries between hard and soft public space.” This installation is a series of public furniture units built with metal framework and fabric netting.
Photo credit: Soft Fits – The Bentway
The project was inspired by the city’s cliffs, bluffs, and forest landscapes, and the installation features netted frames that form shared spaces under and between the trees, creating a relationship to the surrounding environment.
The design of Soft Fits was informed by surveys conducted with local teenagers. Many of the responses indicated that there are several public spaces that are intended to be used by either kids or adults, that do not fit what teenagers look for in a...