Hostile architecture is an urban-design strategy that uses elements of the built environment to purposefully guide or restrict behaviour in order to prevent crime and maintain order. It often targets people who use or rely on public space more than others, such as youth and the homeless, by restricting the physical behaviours in which they can engage. Also known as defensive architecture, hostile design, unpleasant design, exclusionary design, and defensive urban design, the term hostile architecture is often associated with "anti-homeless spikes" – studs embedded in flat surfaces to make sleeping on them uncomfortable and impractical. Other measures include sloped window sills to stop people sitting; benches with armrests positioned to stop people lying on them, and water sprinklers that "intermittently come on but aren't really watering anything." Hostile architecture is also employed to deter skateboarding, littering, loitering, and public urination.
Background
Although the term "hostile architecture" is recent, the use of civil engineering to achieve social engineering is not: antecedents include 19th century "urine deflectors". Its modern form is derived from the design philosophy Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, which aims to prevent crime or protect property through three strategies: natural surveillance, natural access control, and territorial enforcement. Critics of hostile architecture argue that it makes contrarianism impossible, that it replaces public spaces with commercial or "pseudo-public" spaces and uses architecture "to enforce social divisions". Sociologist Robert Park wrote: "In making the city we make ourselves, one might wonder what collective self-conception has produced a city covered in metal spikes, illuminated by blue lights, buzzing with high-frequencies – paranoid, anxious and hostile, by design." Consistent with the widespread implementation of defensible space guidelines in the 1970s, most implementations of CPTED as of 2004 are based solely upon the theory that the proper design and effective use of the built environment can reduce crime, reduce the fear of crime, and improve the quality of life. Built environment implementations of CPTED seek to dissuade offenders from committing crimes by manipulating the built environment in which those crimes proceed from or occur. The six main concepts according to Moffat are territoriality, surveillance, access control, image/maintenance, activity support and target hardening. Applying all of these strategies is key when trying to prevent crime in any neighborhood, crime ridden or not.
Applications
Camping deterrent
Anti-homeless spikes in London to prevent homeless activity.
Seattle city government installed bicycle racks to prevent the homeless from camping.
Since 2013, the State of OregonTransportation Department in United States deployed large boulders at eight locations that have been experiencing problems with transient camps in Portland. These boulders are a form of hostile architecture and they were installed to deter illegal camping near the freeways.
Skateboarding deterrent
Public reception
Proponents say hostile architecture in urban design is necessary to maintain order and safety and deter unwanted behaviors such as loitering, skateboarding and sleeping. Opponents say they're not needed and target the vulnerable disproportionately. In 2018, British artistStuart Semple created a social media public awareness campaign encouraging the public to place identifying stickers on instances of hostile design in their environment.
