Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris on How Hostile Architecture Shapes Our Cities How public spaces are designed to exclude certain groups—and what that says about our cities.
Hostile architecture, sometimes called defensive design, is becoming increasingly common in cities and public spaces. At its core, it’s an urban design strategy meant to discourage certain behaviors, subtly shaping who gets to use spaces and how. Sometimes it’s as discreet as a bench split by armrests to prevent lying down, other times it’s as blatant as rows of metal spikes installed beneath an awning to keep people from sitting.
These design strategies may deter unhoused people, but they also affect everyone. For example, planters or boulders placed to block tents also make sidewalks harder to navigate for parents with strollers or people with disabilities.
Hostile design is not as obvious sometimes either, says Loukaitou-Sideris. “Another example is there was a Skid Row park in Los Angeles where the authorities would start the sprinklers at night so people could not sleep in the park,” Loukaitou-Sideris said.
The controversy is especially sharp when public transit spaces are involved. “You can consider bus stops public spaces because everybody can sit there and they should be open and accessible to the public, right? And unhoused people often use the bus — sometimes they use it as shelter but sometimes they use it to go to work, or reach a destination. So by excluding them from these spaces, does it retain the publicness of the bench?” she asked.
But on the other hand, Loukaitou-Sideris acknowledges competing pressures: “Local governments would say that if the space is occupied constantly by an unhoused person, then other legitimate riders will not be able to use it.”
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