Defensive ArchitectureDefensive, or “hostile”, architecture is a design strategy associated with using elements of the built environment to guide or prevent certain types of behavior to promote law and order in the community. However, many of the spaces that utilize defensive architecture are public spaces which seemingly target certain populations such as young people or the homeless. In fact, defensive architecture is most critically known to relate to “anti-homeless spikes'' which are metal studs embedded in surfaces which make sleeping impossible and uncomfortable.
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Design Decision(s) |
When designing urban and public spaces, defensive architecture is often employed to protect the design intentions of a space. Because by nature, architecture and the built environment tend to find itself being used for activities that the design never intended nor can withstand. These activities can range from birds perching and making their home on the roofs and windows of buildings (think pigeons in European cities), skateboarders grinding down the hard surfaces of an urban park, vandalism, loitering, and public urination. Different tactics of defensive architecture include metal spikes on flat surfaces, window seats, bus-shelter seats that shift forward, water sprinklers, bollards under bridges, metal benches with solid dividers, and many others.
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Social Impact |
Some of these decisions have very positive impacts on the protection of the design as well as the design intent, however, these decisions also have potentially harmful impacts as well. The reality is that hostile architecture often disproportionately affects the poor and homeless communities in our cities. At times, this may be intentional, however, for most of those who work in the public sphere, these decisions are more complicated. Preventing loitering in public places often serves the general public best while even encouraging those who would sleep on the streets to find an actual shelter which could be a positive outcome if the city has adequate infrastructure to shelter its homeless population. At worst, these tactics are seen as “anti-homeless,” creating cities that turn a blind eye to or even design against the homeless communities who do sleep on the streets. For example, Strand bookstore in NYC “installed sprinklers as part of its iconic awning, spraying people seeking shelter and sleeping under it.” In Portland, “large concrete planters appeared under the bridges along the southwest Naito Parkway, an area of relatively little foot traffic but a place of rain-free rest for people experiencing homelessness."
There are many more examples such as these often surrounding the public spaces of America’s largest cities being redesigned to be more accessible for all yet employing tactics that would keep the most vulnerable of the city from finding a place to rest. Obviously, this is a multi-sided, dynamic issue that is more complicated than meets the eye, but at any cost, defense is a design decision that impacts many, protecting some yet potentially yielding others even more vulnerable than they already are. |
Resources
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/defensivearchitecture-design-its-most-hostile
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/18/defensive-architecture-keepspoverty-undeen-and-makes-us-more-hostile
https://insp.ngo/the-united-states-has-a-hostile-architecture-problem-is-publicspace-becoming-private/
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hostile-architecture
https://www.streetroots.org/news/2019/06/07/you-are-not-welcome-here-antihomeless-architecture-crops-nationwide
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/18/defensive-architecture-keepspoverty-undeen-and-makes-us-more-hostile
https://insp.ngo/the-united-states-has-a-hostile-architecture-problem-is-publicspace-becoming-private/
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hostile-architecture
https://www.streetroots.org/news/2019/06/07/you-are-not-welcome-here-antihomeless-architecture-crops-nationwide