From Atlas Obscura via Gladys We:
“The term hostile architecture is new—or new in the popular vernacular anyway,” says James Petty, a freelance criminologist whose PhD research focuses on the ways in which society regulates homelessness. “But practices of designing cities and urban landscapes in certain ways that favor certain groups of people and not others has been going on for a long time.”
Hostile architecture, also known as defensive architecture, exists on a spectrum. At one end are the overt design features that are obvious to anyone walking by—like spikes and fences. At the other end, says Petty, are the design elements in which “the hostile function is often embedded under a socially palatable function.”
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Seating in the London borough of Camden
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A shallow bench at the Dublin Docklands.
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Divided seating outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
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Full article and more pics here.
So, instead of solving the problem of people not having anywhere else to sleep but outside, they make it uncomfortable to sleep on benches.
Yes. It’s completely heartless.
Has any city, group or individual actually observed — really observed — how the homeless actually live? If so there would be documentation on how the majority just want to be left alone. If they are sleeping under a picnic shelter in an urban park, for example, they usually leave when other users appear on the scene. Sure, there are exceptions with those who act out because of mental health issues, but overall these are not the people hanging out on the corner looking for trouble. Skateboarders do far more damage to street furniture than the homeless.
The safest public spaces are active public spaces. The healthiest societies look after their least healthiest and most vulnerable. Looks like the decades-old pattern of indifference will continue to rule the day.
Not that skateboarders go, looking for trouble either. They just have an inadequate number of outlets for their recreation, so unlike the billions of public money spent on edifices to organized sports.
Last week I spent three days in Kamloops as it is my Dad’s hometown and love to visit the home where he lived and the old building on Kamloop’s main street that once hosted my grandfather’s furniture store.
I spent time in its lovely downtown main street – Victoria Street and came upon their Art Gallery (great art show inside…very memorable) and library which had a lovely little corner plaza but classical music was being played loudly and I assumed it was to discourage some from hanging there and all elements that could be skated were ‘skate proofed’ with smooth surfaces having metal elements to discourage skateboarding. No-one was there,
If you ever visit the Museum of Contemporary Art Gallery in Barcelona you will find that skaters are welcome to skate the ledges in front of the Museum and many others gather there to enjoy the sun and watch the sk8ers. My point here is that i was disappointed to find a potentially activated space not working in Kamloops and included many elements including the lack of some food and other welcoming elements.
I think that space needs to be rethought. Also, yes there is wear and tear on public space by skateboarding, but good design can offer up a ledge that is designed to be skated and not damaged for the sk8ers to gather and maybe some places to sit and a food truck and other elements could encourage folks to gather. Trucks and cars impose wear and tear on our public streets as well but apparently that is acceptable.
Trucks pay taxes. Skateboarders usually do not. Damaging public property is now desired, a right even, like graffiti ?
Trucks don’t pay taxes. Skateboarders almost certainly do. Every consumer does, from the lowliest homeless person scraping up coin to buy a slice of pizza (plus GST) to the kid paying for his deck so he can have some unstructured, athletic fun.
Society’s obsession with preventing young people from using public space in anything but a codified manner is bizarre.
And I wish I could remove ‘lowliest’ from my previous comment. Lack of shelter shouldn’t reduce your standing as a human.
I agree. Many public spaces and plazas in BC are designed to keep out young people, including having bylaws against music. As a result they are dead, especially in the evening. While skateboarding is not feasible everywhere due to noise and other issues, many of these newer public spaces seem purely designed for the very young and the old.
I love this trope about skateboarding being noisy. Do you complain about everything that’s louder than skateboarding as well?
Lawn mowers, kids in playgrounds, cars, coffee grinders, HVAC units, birds, ocean waves, whistlers….
My understanding is that sound dissipates exponentially over distance. Essentially, the decibels decrease by the square root for every unit of measurement outwards from the source.
I would think a small skatepark would have similar decibel readings as a kid’s playground, and not nearly as much as a typical arterial, especially with trucks
Thanks Agustin and MB and I will own up to being a skateboarder….my point was that great spaces need activity and the availability of fresh healthy food makes spaces work. My point about the skateboarding in front of The Barcelona Museum is that is street theatre to observe and admire the remarkable street theatre they do…but in a public space, there should just be a corner where young folks can do that and other corners where others can hang, enjoy some healthy food, socialize and enjoy the activity in a public space
Skateboarders are some of the most creative and dedicated people to their craft and culture. They have gotten a bad reputation through ignorance about who they are and what they do. These kids are devoted to individuality and self expression and rarely associate with hardcore street gangs, or seek to become professional millionaire hockey goons. They love art, and some graffiti art mixes cutting edge social commentary with cutting edge talent (not talking about tagging, which is ordinary vandalism). Many of these youth are musicians too. Many are also troubled and have had negative influences on their upbringing, but have found solace and comfort and health through their skateboarding ‘family.’
Kudos to cities that realize the value of providing better funding for recreational facilities oriented to that segment of youth that has a defined sense of individuality and doesn’t follow the herd into establishment team sports. Skateboard parks of all kinds, youth centres with accepting and non-judgemental staff, community centres that host Friday Night Battle of the Bands competitions, a plethora of indoor / outdoor basketball half courts with associated training and competitions … these are the chronically malnourished underdogs of the billion-dollar recreation industry in the Metro.
It’s a real shame.
Nan Ellin edited a great collection of essays about this issue in 1997, entitled “Architeture of Fear.” It is well worth a read if you can find a copy. In her opening essay, she coined the term “form follows fear” https://books.google.ca/books/about/Architecture_of_Fear.html?id=v4OWo8r8IYsC