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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. — MIT Technology Review
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... View full entry
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. — Gothamist
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... View full entry
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...' — The Local
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... View full entry
[...] 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.
— CNN
"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... View full entry
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. — Vice
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:Do cities make you go crazy? On the link between urban living and psychosisWhat... View full entry
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.
— theconversation.com
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... View full entry
