![]() She argues that hostile architecture also deflects responsibility from dealing with the root cause of social and economic issues such as homelessness. “The fallout is much broader than just limiting the group of people that may have initially challenged that space in the beginning, and so it does become a more significant equity issue.” Sure, people can’t sleep on them or make permanent homes on them, but neither can elderly people, frail people, people with disability, pregnant women or children actually sit down,” she says. “Take, for example, the benches that you can’t quite sit on. This is a very different perspective from architects, urban designers and landscape architects approach public space in terms of equity and participation.” Public space, but only for someĪccording to Dr Murray, even if the goal of installing hostile architecture in public space is to control crime or antisocial behaviour, the impacts are extensive and could outweigh any benefits. “Their perspective is centred around actively preventing crime through surveillance, access control and territorial enforcement. “For example, the police talk about hostile and defensive architecture as ‘crime prevention through environmental design’,” she says. Train station benches often have metal armrests inserted to stop people laying down. We essentially deprive comfort to the majority of the public because of concerns around behaviour that might happen, or that is considered less than ideal in certain situations.”ĭr Murray says it is often councils and other local authorities leading the charge when implementing hostile designs, who are not necessarily working in collaboration with design professionals. “That takes hostile architecture to a new extreme, where we are deliberately designing to a brief of making a less comfortable environment for the public. ![]() For example, we frequently see benches that are too thin to sit on, that slope to intentionally prompt a sense of instability, or are made from materials that are uncomfortable and unwelcoming to the human form. ![]() “Reactionary measures sometimes give way to public furniture that is designed from the outset to be uncomfortable and to move people on. This more openly aggressive design-thinking from the outset is “another thing altogether”, Dr Murray says, and disproportionately targets those who rely on those spaces, particularly youth and the homeless. While these types of hostile architecture tactics are mostly reactionary, they are also beginning to become more pre-meditated. “Areas that attract antisocial behaviour may have been designed better if architects or designers were brought into a design process from the outset.” “It is distressing to see public space designed to inhibit use and comfort,” Dr Murray says. You might notice similar anti-skateboarding guards all around the city. But it also extends to other measures including benches with handrails placed between individual seats, anti-skate blade and fin insertions in low walls, motion-detecting spotlights and time-based sprinklers that don’t water anything. The term ‘hostile architecture’ is often associated with anti-homeless spikes embedded in flat surfaces, underneath bridges or in foyers or sheltered areas of buildings, to make sleeping uncomfortable and inaccessible for rough sleepers. “The materials and the forms of hostile architecture are essentially aggressive and can be understood as part of a strategy for realigning the actual use of public space with its intended use.” A hostile takeover “The terms defensive architecture and hostile architecture are militaristic in their tone and imply the existence of a war against unanticipated use,” says Dr Ainslie Murray, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at UNSW Built Environment. ![]() While some argue it is necessary for things like crime prevention, others say it systematically targets the vulnerable who rely on public space the most. These aggressive measures are part of the urban design strategy known as defensive architecture, or hostile architecture, and use elements of the built environment to restrict behaviours perceived as antisocial. But it turns out they are part of a growing suite of hostile design interventions in public spaces. Spikes, bars and barricades are not typically things you would associate with a park.
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