Archinect - News

Designing for disaster in an increasingly fire-burdened California

2023-04-19T11:45:00-04:00

Each home was considered to be built to shelter-in-place standards, with ignition-resistant construction and materials—a cutting-edge approach for the time, though the standards have since been adopted into state and local codes. They are little fortresses of tile roofs, stucco walls, hardscape patios, and covered eaves. [The] heavy fortification gives the communities—both the structures and the people who shelter in them—an extra chance to survive.

The state is in a bind caused by its dire need to quickly enact affordable housing and the movement of populations into liminal wildland-urban interface zones, both of which are placing more people in the fight or flight predicament that’s leading to more innovations in residential design surrounding the concept of defensible space.

Experts point to homes in the Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood in San Diego as exemplars of fire safety that the rest of the state is still lagging to catch on to, hemmed in by costs that are making defensive evacuation plans harder to execute. “Shelter-in-place really was a theory,” local fire protection specialist Brandon Closs told the MIT Technology Review, “it’s still a work in progress.”

Has the public become numb to hostile architecture?

2019-08-19T16:00:00-04:00

As New York grapples with its constant demand for public spaces, some residents are objecting to the restrictive and exclusionary designs and policies that they say reflect an increasingly hostile city. And as more developers build amenities in exchange for greater density, there is increased scrutiny on what passes for free and open public spaces.

The implications for hostile architecture are often presented as subtle design solutions that can aide the public from unwanted city disturbances. However, many individuals are beginning to notice these design efforts to become politically driven initiatives for controlling people experiencing homelessness and loiterers.

Elizabeth Kim from the Gothamist shares in her recent article responses from architects and their perspectives on hostile architecture.

“There are these battles of access that often play out through architecture and urban design,” said Tobias Armborst, a Brooklyn-based architect and urban designer. Armborst co-founded Interboro Partners which focuses on public space design and community engagement. The ethos of the practice highlights design methods that focus on inclusive design and awareness. In 2017 Armborst and his colleagues wrote a book about the topic of hostile architecture called The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion. In regards to hostile architecture Armb...

Have public parks transitioned into privatized spaces filled with defensive urban design techniques?

2019-07-26T14:18:00-04:00

There is the vision of parks, and public space more generally, as space free from institutional control or coercion—from police, or parks ambassadors, and encroaching privatization. And then there is the vision of public space as controlled and orderly, for passive use, or for recreation and entertainment. 'Users of this space must be made to feel comfortable, and they should not be driven away by unsightly homeless people or unsolicited political activity...'

With the privatization of spaces steadily increasing the idea of a genuine public space seems to be an ideal of the past. The importance of public space, specifically public parks is an integral part of a thriving city and community. However, laws and new policies are being re-configured to appease spaces like public parks to satisfy a specific demographic.

According to a recent article by Toronto-based journalist Matthew Braga, he shares the looming possible future of a city's battle with public space. In his piece for The Local, Braga shares, "There is a long history of bureaucracy and bylaws being wielded against the poor, and cities have gone to great lengths to make those experiencing homelessness feel unwelcome in public spaces." Initiatives for local city government's enforcing defensive design techniques.

A balance between maintaining public space for all while regulating disruptive behaviors are approached with conflicting views. Have public parks become new territories fo...

Debating hostile architecture and its impact on our cities

2017-12-07T15:35:00-05:00

[...] hostile architecture -- a controversial type of urban design aimed at preventing people from using public spaces in undesirable ways. [...] CNN invited architect James Furzer, whose designs try to combat hostile architecture, to debate this issue with Dean Harvey, co-founder of the Factory Furniture: a company that produces many of the offending benches.

"Is it really a bad thing that you're encouraging people to hang around those spaces?," asks architect James Furzer in his CNN debate with Dean Harvey of Factory Furniture, maker of the controversial Camden bench. "Is that not what architecture and design are about? If we designed a building where people didn't want to stay for too long, because it's hostile and uncomfortable, have we succeeded in our jobs as architects? I don't think so."

Read the full debate here.

Designing around gun violence

2016-08-04T12:48:00-04:00

Our culture of fear has changed the role of architecture in the United States. In just 2016 alone, the country has seen 221 mass shootings, and we struggle to keep up with the stream of international terrorism attacks by groups like ISIS and Boko Haram. If you listen to the news for too long, every building we enter seems compromised, from malls and movie theaters to schools.

So while legislators falter over gun control laws, architects and building designers are working to rethink the concept of a safe space.

For more architectural responses to public health issues, check out these links:

Amid London's austerity measures, "defensive design" becomes even more hostile

2016-01-04T13:21:00-05:00

Designing out homelessness appears to be part of a wider ambition to make consumers and investors feel secure, while avoiding direct human intervention. [...] It is an indictment of our communities that we have come to identify street homelessness as a form of “disorder” – a sign that something is amiss or dangerous in our public spaces. Yet the reality is that these kinds of design and security measures are put in place because of the breakdown of these very communities.

This piece by Rowland Atkinson (Chair in Inclusive Societies) and Aidan While (Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning) at the University of Sheffield gets at how exclusionary design towards the homeless and so-called "rough" sleepers (those who sleep in the city's streets) is a sign of increasing societal rifts, as income inequality and austerity measures press down hard on London.