Sunday, March 18, 2018

What are some examples of “intentional” bad design?


Termed 'defensive' or Hostile architecture - Wikipedia, a cornucopia of 'intentional' unpleasant design abounds all around us, especially in affluent urban centers. Examples of unpleasant design (see below from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) conspicuously shape public spaces to placate haves at the expense of have-nots, i.e., their aim ‘isn’t to achieve something good, like a safety goal’, but rather to keep certain people out.

Crudely executed ones such as the London Spikes (7) puncture the carefully constructed facade of how we engender consensus around the idea of what's publicly acceptable, which usually entails some form of hostility to the homeless.

Predictably of short duration, such outcries are responses to how public space is shaped, not about why it's being done in the first place. They also deflect attention from the core issue of how complicity is inherent to public consensus, how public policy usually assuages the wants of the haves at the expense of the needs of the have-nots.


Plenty more global examples of defensive architecture by Nils Norman - Wikipedia on his web-site (6).

Bibliography
1. Slate, Kristin Hohenadel, June 12, 2014. Are Anti-Homeless Sidewalk Spikes Immoral?
4. The Atlantic, Robert Rosenberger, June 19, 2014. How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away
7. Petty, James. International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy 5.1 (2016): 67-81. The London Spikes Controversy: Homelessness, Urban Securitisation and the Question of ‘Hostile Architecture’


https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-%E2%80%9Cintentional%E2%80%9D-bad-design/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


No comments:

Post a Comment