Hostile architecture
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: Hostile architecture |  |
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I found this an eye-opening and disturbing article:
http://qz.com/370163/architects-are-purposefully-designing-uncomfortable-park-benches/
| Quote: | While the latest anti-homeless installation in Selfridges, Manchester, caused widespread outrage, it is only one of many examples of such installations around the world. In June 2014, anti-homeless studs were installed in a London apartment block in Southwark Bridge Road. These were removed six days later by the developer following pressure from London’s mayor Boris Johnson among others. Around the same time, spikes were also removed from a Tesco storefront.
What is interesting here is the shifting idea of what is “acceptable.” Anti-homeless spikes have been used for quite some time, as documented by numerous city activists like Survival Group’s Anti-Sites. But nobody objected until pictures of the installations went viral on social media, prompting mainstream media outlets like the Guardian article to pay attention.
This is the brilliance of good defensive architectural design—it’s easy to miss unless you are part of the community being targeted. |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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For 10 extra marks, explain how is this different from simply erecting a fence.
(Hint: there is a key distinction at the root of this question, which you must discover for yourself.)
Papers must be submitted no later than 5pm on Friday 31st February.
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| I'm against this because it is needlessly cruel - can't they just be culled humanely by shooting? |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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Perfectly acceptable for a private business to take steps against something that would cause it to lose business. Having a shop front used as a bedroom/toilet for homeless people is hardly conducive to a pleasant shopping experience.
Same goes for a private housing complex, I wouldn't be buying an apartment if the entrance smelled like urine and the local homeless regularly sleep out the front.
All this faux outrage would be better spent doing things like volunteering at a soup kitchen, raising funds for homeless shelters or helping in building affordable housing. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Tannin wrote: | For 10 extra marks, explain how is this different from simply erecting a fence.
(Hint: there is a key distinction at the root of this question, which you must discover for yourself.)
Papers must be submitted no later than 5pm on Friday 31st February. |
Well, it depends what you're talking about. If you're just referring to the spikes in front of shop windows, a fence would more or less achieve the same thing, albeit with a slightly less aggressive message. But the benches are public spaces, and so a different thing again.
Even with fences, it makes you wonder what purpose is being served. If it's to protect property, the primary purpose of fences, that's fair enough. But any other usage is probably going to be pretty creepy.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Except, Wokko, it looks freaking creepy for shoppers, too.
I wouldn't want addicts on my retail front either, BTW. But if you hollow the guts out of police and welfare budgets, this is the sort of aggressive DIY policing you get instead. Creepily dystopian and a throwback to Dickensian England. It says a lot about a society, in my view.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Wokko wrote: | Perfectly acceptable for a private business to take steps against something that would cause it to lose business. Having a shop front used as a bedroom/toilet for homeless people is hardly conducive to a pleasant shopping experience.
Same goes for a private housing complex, I wouldn't be buying an apartment if the entrance smelled like urine and the local homeless regularly sleep out the front.
All this faux outrage would be better spent doing things like volunteering at a soup kitchen, raising funds for homeless shelters or helping in building affordable housing. |
Homeless people should not be sleeping on the streets, for the sake of both their own health and quality public space. So the civic authorities need to provide basic acceptable shelter. Once that condition is fulfilled, it perfectly reasonable to design architecture to prevent occupancy, and to police against vagrancy. If the condition is not fulfilled, then it's not right to design public spaces to exclude people who need somewhere to sleep. Private spaces, as Wokko says, are private and the owners have the right to protect their property.
Homelessness is a complicated topic, but if you lived in London in the 1990s, as I did, and you saw large areas of beautiful public space become foul Dickensian squats stinking of urine and rife with crime, then I think you might struggle with the idea that it's all part of the lovely picturesque urban experience.
One factor in the development of the various cardboard or tent cities was simple tolerance : it became acceptable for many people who might have used shelters to set up camp in at Lincoln's Inn Fields or at Waterloo. For some dreadlocked activists, it was a career choice. Discouraging rough sleeping at the same time as you provide basic alternatives is a pretty good strategy for preserving a pleasant public realm.
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Mugwump wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | Perfectly acceptable for a private business to take steps against something that would cause it to lose business. Having a shop front used as a bedroom/toilet for homeless people is hardly conducive to a pleasant shopping experience.
Same goes for a private housing complex, I wouldn't be buying an apartment if the entrance smelled like urine and the local homeless regularly sleep out the front.
All this faux outrage would be better spent doing things like volunteering at a soup kitchen, raising funds for homeless shelters or helping in building affordable housing. |
Homeless people should not be sleeping on the streets, for the sake of both their own health and quality public space. So the civic authorities need to provide basic acceptable shelter. Once that condition is fulfilled, it perfectly reasonable to design architecture to prevent occupancy, and to police against vagrancy. If the condition is not fulfilled, then it's not right to design public spaces to exclude people who need somewhere to sleep. Private spaces, as Wokko says, are private and the owners have the right to protect their property.
Homelessness is a complicated topic, but if you lived in London in the 1990s, as I did, and you saw large areas of beautiful public space become foul Dickensian squats stinking of urine and rife with crime, then I think you might struggle with the idea that it's all part of the lovely picturesque urban experience.
One factor in the development of the various cardboard or tent cities was simple tolerance : it became acceptable for many people who might have used shelters to set up camp in at Lincoln's Inn Fields or at Waterloo. For some dreadlocked activists, it was a career choice. Discouraging rough sleeping at the same time as you provide basic alternatives is a pretty good strategy for preserving a pleasant public realm. |
A voice of sense. Well said.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Oh a web page. |
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3.14159 
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | Perfectly acceptable for a private business to take steps against something that would cause it to lose business. Having a shop front used as a bedroom/toilet for homeless people is hardly conducive to a pleasant shopping experience.
Same goes for a private housing complex, I wouldn't be buying an apartment if the entrance smelled like urine and the local homeless regularly sleep out the front.
All this faux outrage would be better spent doing things like volunteering at a soup kitchen, raising funds for homeless shelters or helping in building affordable housing. |
Homeless people should not be sleeping on the streets, for the sake of both their own health and quality public space. So the civic authorities need to provide basic acceptable shelter. Once that condition is fulfilled, it perfectly reasonable to design architecture to prevent occupancy, and to police against vagrancy. If the condition is not fulfilled, then it's not right to design public spaces to exclude people who need somewhere to sleep. Private spaces, as Wokko says, are private and the owners have the right to protect their property.
Homelessness is a complicated topic, but if you lived in London in the 1990s, as I did, and you saw large areas of beautiful public space become foul Dickensian squats stinking of urine and rife with crime, then I think you might struggle with the idea that it's all part of the lovely picturesque urban experience.
One factor in the development of the various cardboard or tent cities was simple tolerance : it became acceptable for many people who might have used shelters to set up camp in at Lincoln's Inn Fields or at Waterloo. For some dreadlocked activists, it was a career choice. Discouraging rough sleeping at the same time as you provide basic alternatives is a pretty good strategy for preserving a pleasant public realm. |
One thing that has shocked me here, Mugwump, has been the lack of police on the streets. Reading is not Belsize Park, and there are drunks, drunk thugs and drugged-out beggars wandering up and down and coming upon you out of the shadows all night. Not to mention the under-treated folks who haven't taken their antipsychotics and are wandering about screaming like maniacs half the evening.
Is this a budget cut thing? It's unacceptable to replace a real police presence with cameras. You can see the conversation now:
"Oh look, boss, the streets are quiet tonight. Should be an easy one watching the cameras."
Yes, dickwad, it's quiet tonight alright; everyone is too scared to come out!
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ PTID, Hard to know. Could be budget cuts, or could just be the part of Reading that you're in. British policing has always been pretty low-impact and hands-off (eg they're still not routinely armed), and it always shocks me when I go back to Melbourne to find how invasive the police are there. I feel like I am in the US in that regard.
The British attitiude to policing is best summed up by the fact that speed cameras are large and painted yellow, with markings on the road to show the area of coverage. You have to go out of your way, in the UK, to get into trouble.
I suspect the cameras are just there to make people feel secure. For all that, the rate of serious crime has been dropping year-on year in the Uk for many years, I believe.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Fair call. It could well just be a perception thing based on having the Australian model in mind.
Still, it can't be worse than having no security at all at crowded baseball stadiums in Korea 
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ there's an old European joke, which you may have heard - Heaven in Europe is when the Italians are the cooks, the Germans the mechanics, the French are the lovers, and the British the police, and it is all organised by the Swiss.
Hell ? British cooks, Italian engineers, French mechanics, Swiss lovers and German police ... all organised by the Italians.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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