we are now in the days where we can find more irregular shaped benches that are uncomfortable to sit on the normal benches in our city I'm rested enough not to provide you comfort while sitting and decorative elements that are not solely for decoration for decades pigeon Spikes have been installed on Windows and walls to deter unwanted Birds but in recent times more and more spikes are installed on theground level detering unwanted people but why are we treating people like pigeons attaching metal bars to the middle of park benches to stop homeless people from sleeping on them if I were to try to stretch out my legs to sleep I wouldn't be able to because of this metal bar you certainly wouldn't want to lie down here and they've been popping up in doorways all across London anti-homeless spikes hostile architecture hostile architecture hostile architecture defensive architecture or unpleasant design is the element of the buil environment that is designed to guide or restrict certain behaviors such as lightering skateboarding and drug usage to prevent specific social outcomes or to keep certain groups of people such as homeless people or teenagers out of the area the names despite all referring to the same type of architecture reflect different perspectives on the matter the word defensive is passive while hostile is active this could be seen as a distinction of intention an element or environment can be defined as hostile if it is produced with the implicit or explicit hostile intent but it can be defined as defensive if it is produced with the intention to defend or protect against attack or harm it is understandable that the party implementing these elements would want to call it defensive architecture to push the RO of the villain to whom the architecture is used against and that the other party would want to call it hostile architecture to call out the hostility of the one who implen it therefore it depends on who has given the role of the villain in this picture however it can also be the question or perception a design element can still be perceived as hostile even if that was not the original intention but is byproduct whereas unpleasant design does not refer to the design that fails to be pleasant but rather does successful one in making it unpleasant in order to deter certain activities by design it seems to be a clever solution to certain problems for one group of people but it discriminates the other creating an unequal exclusive Society because the authority fails to solve the problem at the root cause they use architecture as a tool to prevent it in that specific area architecture has been used for the defensive purposes dating back to the 19th century from a small element such as urine deflectors which were commonly used to prevent public urination in the Streets of London as the sloping surface deflects a stream of urine back to the perpetrator to an urban planning scale as an aftermath of the 1848 French Revolution the proletariat built barricades with various furniture and Supplies on the street which made the navigation of the French military more difficult when streets were later redesigned preventing this is believed to be part of the reasons behind many wide boulevards in Paris in 1971 C Ray Jeffrey coined the term crime prevention through environmental design or seped which is an approach to reducing crime by strategically manipulating the physical environment to eliminate criminal opportunities the septed principles focus on creating environments that encourage National surveillance and access control reinforce territories and ownership and enhance the perception of safety however the concept is prone to misuse and the abuse of the guidelines is largely transformed it into the currently prevalent hostile architecture over the years it has gravitated towards the more hostile and defensive end of the spectrum the architectures become a silent regulator of the city one that controls the Mass's Behavior it is intended to keep the public spaces in order we should also help safe relasing costs reduce maintenance and vandalism but in reality that might not be the case hosle architecture is used against many undesired demographics such as skateboarders teenagers and even people in general but the most prominent and controversial use nowadays is against the homeless the people who rely on public spaces most as there are those without private spaces of their own but also the least wanted by Property Owners the homelessness issue has been under eyes the number of R sleepers in London more than trip holds between 2009 and 2021 in 2023 at least 10,53 people are homeless in London and at least 271,000 in England including 123,000 children there are numerous reasons for homelessness including poverty systematic inequality and discrimination unemployment as well as domestic abuse and family breakdown yet the majority of homeless people end up on a street simply because they can no longer afford to pay rent the number of social houses declined by a quarter in the last 40 Years the drop occurs when houses are so through the right to buy scheme or move to a higher rent category and not enough new houses are built to balance those being removed from the social housing stock this results in an insufficient provision of housing for those in need incomes are disproportionate to the rising rents and cost of living and that Gap is still widening with the lack of affordable housing and a well faes T to support them when they struggle financially there are inevitably evicted from privately rented homes homelessness is largely stigmatized by the Society this stigma could possibly be rooted from the nearly 200 years old vagrancy act which made it a crime to sleep rough in England and Wales despite many attempts to repeal the law is still in effect today the public perception of the homeless population tends to be unpleasant and detrimental research shows that the common beliefs about the homeless are associated with crime drugs anti social behavior and poor hygiene although this surely does not apply to all people experiencing homelessness some studies F on relationship between homelessness mental disorder and nonviolent crime these concerns often make the presence of a homeless person as someone's doorstep or shopfront unwelcome meanwhile the shifted role of architecture forms the concept of architecture as commodity fundamentally all architecture is shelter which is something that provides cover and protection whereas Commodities are basic Goods that are interchangeable with other Commodities of the same type after the world fast states with withdrawal and the prevalence of privatization Necessities for life that used to be provided by the state are now left to the market and buildings are provided by private companies due to its high costs construction and within it architecture inevitably works for and within the monetary system architecture has become more than just shelter it has Market values and it is exchangeable residential architecture is no longer just for living in but it can be an investment a property therefore in this capitalist world where the motive is to make profits anything that could make the values of Commodities go down is undesirable arguably this concept together with the authori failure to solve the increasing homelessness has contributed to the ubiquity of hostile architecture in modern cities when investigating hostile architecture in the architectural aspect it can be found in various forms some are designed from the moment they were built which reflect their forms sizes and mat materials and others are unplanned or arranged later on examples being plant pots or free sanding decorations from an empirical survey in London areas most of the Hostile architecture found fall into at least one of these categories the benches the studs the obstacles and the spikes some are more implicit than others which often come in Disguise as decorative elements or elements that serve other purposes as an attempt to make the Hostile intent un remarkable the forms are Al determined by the purpose of the target group most hostile architecture used against homeless people comes in the form of benches divided with armrests so you can only sit and not lie down or Alternative forms of benches that at first glance seem like a des sign athetic decision they're uncomfortable to lie on or even just to sit on which serves an extra purpose of preventing a person from sitting there for too long many public benches also have starts or pick ears that will throw any attempt at skateboarding off violence other surf surfes that could be used by skateboarders as Rams are also segmented and repressed in some part for the same purpose the Canon bench commissioned by C London Bor Council and produced by Factory Furniture is a prime example that perfectly integrates all the principles it is deliberately designed to deter all of what the Creator called criminal and antisocial behavior and to only allow one function which is sitting not so comfortably the rich and incline top makes it difficult to skateboard off and uncomfortable to lie on discouraging both skateboarding and rough sleeping the bench has no gaps leaving drugs dealers with no place to hide their drugs but the shallow recesses allow people to put their backs behind their legs for added security the reduction of flat surfaces minimizes litter accumulation and allows easy drainage of water and dirts reducing the needs for cleaning and maintenance it is also coated with waterproof anti-gravity coating the design has received many awards as well as a great deal of criticism which reflects The Divided opinions on this subject while these elements are not inherently hostile they have the Hostile intent embedded within the design in contrast spikes clearly and openly present themselves as hostile they're installed in potential rough sing areas often in areas under cover such as building corners or recessed doorways an alternative to spikes therefore comes in a form of decorations they're seemingly less hostile but they still do the exact same thing spikes are also found on the top of fences and barriers as an extra step of security at the same time however they further emphasize the social boundary and reduces diversity and uses of space sometimes they can even cause serious injuries or aggravate injuries from incidents there are also elements that are not physically hostile but the visuals have some psychological effects that make the space for unwelcoming and some are not necessarily pushing people away but can be used to define ter territory and ownership which indirectly leads to the same result all of these simply says to everybody else that they do not belong here for the homeless this is excluding them out to Nowhere it only pushes the poor and vulnerable out to other areas of the city without getting the help they need which possibly leads them to even more precarious situations governments are usually more concerned with varying the image of poverty than solving it people are still poor and homeless but this in different parts of the city while money is still being put into hostile architecture trying to get the homeless out of sight it is far from being an effective measure it is not solving anything but only displacing the problem this supposedly creates a better experience for the upper class living in VY areas but in fact it makes a city less welcoming for them as well what is hostile for his Target group is also hostile for the others these elements interact directly with our bodies whether that is to make us uncomfortable or blocking certain areas so we cannot be in there it therefore affects how people experience the city in general despite all the criticisms hostile architecture which harms more people that benefits still increases in prevalence raising a question of whom exactly we designed the city for public spaces are spaces that are available and accessible to the general public as they are collectively owned everyone should have equal rights to free perform or take part in any activities that are permitted by law in theory they should be free and open to those from all backgrounds who coexist yet when the coexistence of some groups of people are undesired holle architecture as a physical form of discrimination diverts the actual public space from its intended purpose this intrinsically privileges one group of people over another there has also been an increasing number of pseudo public spaces or privately owned public public spaces in London and many other cities as public land continues to be privatized due to budgetary pressure on local authorities land owners can create their own rules for acceptable behaviors on their SES and they are not required to make the rules public this means the rules can be arbitrary or can be used to exclude some members of the public and hence the right to free uses of public spaces is taken away diminishing the Democratic value of the city although there are technically private land there are still part of the wider City context which contributes to the urban experience in general the existence of such people as the homeless can cause the feeling of insecurity due to the reasons discussed earlier ultimately the embedded hostility is often rooted from Fear the fear of insecurity the fear of nuisance and the fear of losing one's own benefits some people would rather have hostile architecture than a homeless person in front of the house or in public spaces needless to say the surroundings can tremendously shape the inhabitants emotion and behavior when the urban environment is designed with a lack of empathy it also discourages empathy of people in the city and reduces tolerance within Community despite the undesirable behaviors of some and the law of which the appropriateness is still in question people experiencing homelessness are extremely vulnerable and need help they're already being segregated from the society by how they're being treated yet the architecture is also used as an extra form of urban exclusion the only sensible way to avoid troubles for the homeless as well as the other City dwellers is to implement effective solutions to end homelessness not blindly criminalizing or ostracizing them at the end of the day how hostile architecture came to be reflects many underlying problems within our society and urban environment from the housing crisis to discrimin ation and many more but one thing we can be certain of is that there will not be soed with hostile [Music] architecture