The Subtle Design Features That Make Cities Feel More Hostile

Table Of Content

• At USC, arrests. At UCLA, hands off. Why pro-Palestinian protests have not blown up on UC campuses
• ‘Hostile Architecture’: How Public Spaces Keep the Public Out
• MassArt’s 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition Opens in Boston’s SoWa Arts District
• Sleeping deterrents
• Visionary Horizons: A Girl’s Journey through the Future of Architecture in 2060

Classic research in social psychology tells us that one way to motivate attitude change and bring disparate groups together is to introduce superordinate goals. These are goals that require effort from members of both sides to be successful. Horwill says questioning briefs is a good place to start – asking what exactly is the problem needing to be solved. “It’s a dangerous process to start from the end of exclusion,” she says, adding that any number of groups who rely on spaces to sit or rest – the elderly, people with disabilities, young families, for example – could also be caught up in the process of excluding the homeless. Atkinson says what is needed and what the reality is are often miles apart.

At USC, arrests. At UCLA, hands off. Why pro-Palestinian protests have not blown up on UC campuses

Needless to say, Brunsing was flabbergasted when park officials in the Shandong Province were inspired by his installation and created their own version of (actual) pay-per-sit benches. In Adelaide’s CBD, a variety of metal elements can be found along with fountains, benches, and walkways. The city maintains that these are only to obstruct skateboarders from grinding on them, which is a form of hostile architecture by seeking to control public use.

‘Hostile Architecture’: How Public Spaces Keep the Public Out

Anti-Anti Hostile Architecture: Simple ways for inclusive design - Parametric Architecture

Anti-Anti Hostile Architecture: Simple ways for inclusive design.

Posted: Sat, 28 Jan 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Almost like a form of aikido— using their opponents’ strengths against them. At Yale, some Jewish students thought the protests turned hostile toward them. The encampments and protests are students’ attempt to focus attention on the Gaza Strip. After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory war, according to the Gaza health authorities. Published 11 times a year, Hospitality Design magazine is the premier trade outlet and voice for the hospitality design industry.

Denby Fawcett: Hostile Design Won't Stop Homelessness. It Just Makes Us All Uncomfortable - Honolulu Civil Beat

Denby Fawcett: Hostile Design Won't Stop Homelessness. It Just Makes Us All Uncomfortable.

Posted: Wed, 30 Nov 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]

MassArt’s 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition Opens in Boston’s SoWa Arts District

On the corner of 17th St. and Washington Ave. sits Soundscape Park and newly built concrete balls on the benches surrounding the park to clearly prevent the homeless population from resting. In 2008, German sculptor Fabian Brunsing created the Pay & Sit bench as a form of artistic protest against commercialized public spaces. In order to sit down, users have to insert 0.50 € into a coin slot; once the allotted time runs out, small spikes rise from the seat’s bottom, forcing users to move.

Sleeping deterrents

In 2014, the city began putting dividers on the benches at some of Oahu’s nearly 4,000 bus stops to keep homeless sleepers from stretching out on them. They prevent people from sleeping yet at the same time they are big enough for someone out on a walk to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee,” said Robert Boyd. Recently many of the regular park benches along the Ala Wai Canal were replaced with uncomfortable green metal seats capable of holding only two people, tightly packed side by side. As the volume of interdisciplinary work grows, so too will the awareness and appreciation for these new ideas. Part of the problem may stem from the fact that, unlike behavioral scientists, architects and urban planners do not conduct “research” in the sense that psychologists do, nor are they required to take any research methods courses as part of graduate school training. Conversely, urban design is not featured in most social science research methods courses.

Community

Structures and elements of hostile design such as benches, lighting, and landscape, are already familiar to those in architecture courses but are re-designed for a specific purpose. Particular elements of hostile design are used because they are believed to prevent certain behaviours in the public space, whether those behaviours involve sleeping on a local bench or loitering in a specific area. Hostile Design is a way to keep people from doing normal things that people would do – like sit, or lay down. These design elements are used throughout the urban landscape to exclude people from private and public spaces. Hostile Design does not include private security forces, CCV cameras, or other elements that require human interaction. But the signs that stand in proxy for security forces can be considered hostile design.

Thanks to cameras, a Southern California restaurateur helped police identify the suspect in the brutal assault of two women near the Venice canals. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. “If what they do is establish some fundamental principles, we can make sure that our laws comply with whatever principles they establish,” she said. “They have all had similar experiences with the Grants Pass police awaking them, moving them along, ticketing them, fining them, arresting them and/or criminally prosecuting them for living outside,” Blake wrote.

In Mumbai, anti-homeless spikes have been removed from outside a prominent bank building; in Seattle, anti-homeless bike racks were removed by the Department of Transportation; and crucially for Semple, Bournemouth Borough Council have removed the bars on its benches. But hostile architecture, in New York and other cities, has increasingly drawn a backlash from critics who say that such measures are unnecessary and disproportionately target vulnerable populations. They have assailed what they call “anti-homeless spikes” for targeting those who have nowhere else to go at a time when many cities are grappling with a homelessness crisis. Rosenberger notes that hostile architecture is often (though not always) being carried out by “powerful people putting in the design to stop the behaviors of the less powerful people,” limiting the uses of public space for already-disadvantaged groups.

Visionary Horizons: A Girl’s Journey through the Future of Architecture in 2060

Public benches and tables now removed need to be reinstalled for the public to enjoy once again. Matusow said Sunday in a phone conservation that 18 years later, homeless people and criminals are still frightening pedestrians in the area. The city also replaced benches at some bus stops with concrete stools that can accommodate only a single person. This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

It was his recent encounter with benches in his hometown of Bournemouth, though, that provoked him to launch a public campaign against hostile designs. Semple, witnessing the speed at which the information spread and amplified, decided to broaden his agenda and encourage others to join him in calling out hostile public designs. I also did a tour around Vancouver where, for example, Granville street’s redesign for the 2010 Winter Olympics features a lot of unpleasant classics – separate sitting chairs, anti-sleeping benches, anti-terrorist bins. The use of unpleasant designs to discourage sleeping and loitering is so widely spread around the globe that it becomes almost necessary wherever homelessness appears. It is not typical of Canadian cities, especially given that the climate does not favour homelessness very much.

Maybe we should hide them but it's easier and more cruel to remove the spots they can sleep. Sleep being a basic human need but not a human right.One day the city tells you you can't sleep, there's no place for you to sleep. It starts when we, set and having what we can less and less afford, start de-humanizing others and making that ok. Maybe there was a quasi-ornamental railing preventing you from kicking up your feet and stretching out?

Most of us prefer physical spaces that offer views of green vistas over windowless basements. Studies of patients who viewed trees outside the window recovered more quickly from hospital stays. Also, bringing flowers can increase optimism and may actually improve the rate of recovery. The relationship between stress and uncultivated outdoor settings may play a role in this.

The Design Council has strengthened its position on city design recently, launching an inclusive environment CPD course earlier this year. Horwill says the course is intended to make people more aware and enthusiastic about inclusive design. When your neighbour has anti-pigeon spikes – the tiny spikes you put on window seals or rooftops to prevent pigeons form landing – you have to install them too, otherwise all pigeons will land on your property.