4 Out-There Designs to Cut the Carbon Footprint of Heated Sidewalk Cafés

Jacqueline Feldman wrote back in February about the showdown over Paris' café terraces, a fierce battle that has pit against each other smokers who would like to stay warm outside (alongside the restauranteurs who want their business) and environmentalists who see heated sidewalks as a giant waste of energy. The tension has been particularly pronounced in Paris, a city famous for its plein-air people-watching. But the trouble is also arising anywhere anti-smoking laws are pushing people out of restaurants and bars and onto the sidewalk.

The resulting challenge is an engineering one: By definition, these outdoor terraces must be open-air – otherwise, you couldn't smoke in them. But that design requirement also means that it's nearly impossible to efficiently heat these spaces. (We'll pause here for a moment to also acknowledge that this is very much a first-world design problem.)