The premise of social design is to build space consistent with the tenets of social psychology. Gruman et. al. (2017) discusses the implications of that definition: sometimes designers are called to design something that benefits the funder over the people it serves.
This serves as the basis of hostile architecture. In their article, Licht (2020) defines hostile architecture as design that “by proxy of an agent or by x itself displays (explicit or implicit/openly or concealed) ill will through reactive attitudes, or relevantly similar correlates, toward y (e.g. agents/behaviors/non-human animals) and try to harm y, or not caring if y is harmed, by this display of ill will at the time the hostilities occur”.
The most commonly cited example of this is “anti-homelessness spikes”, or pointed objects that are placed under bridges and other covered areas where homeless people frequently sleep.The “ill will” in these structures are that it conveys a level of disrespect, dehumanizes, and forces these people into further unsafe environments.
However, Licht (2020) also proposes that there is another, related type of preventive architecture, called “defensive architecture”, or architecture designed to prevent a behavior without malice. One such example of this is skate stops, or structures placed on rails or ramps that prevent skateboarding.
In their article, McDuie-Ra & Campbell (2022) discuss the broad political implications of skate stops. They liken them to small scale public surveillance devices, another tenet of social design discussed by Gruman et. al. (2017). The purpose of surveillance in a community is to decrease deviant behavior. Skateboarding is usually considered a type of deviant behavior, as it disrupts walking flow and has an anti-establishment culture.
What is missing most from these discussions is that there are fewer and fewer places for these types of “deviant behavior” to occur. There are not enough shelters to house the homeless, there are not enough dedicated skate parks to appeal to all the skaters. As it stands, architecture that solely seeks to prevent a behavior without providing a viable alternative is simply removing the problem from sight. While this may be the goal of the people who fund these projects, architects and social psychologists have a duty to help solve these problems, not just become a part of them.
Sources
Gruman, J.A., Schneider, F.W., & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Licht, K. d. F. (2020). “Hostile architecture” and its confederates: A conceptual framework for how we should perceive our cities and the objects in them. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 29(2), 1-17.
McDuie-Ra, D., & Campbell, J. (2022). Surface tensions: Skate-stoppers and the surveillance politics of small spaces. Surveillance & Society, 20(3), 231-247.