Rules

Rocks are installed in the spaces near Calais to prevent installations. A redevelopment has been proposed. Quai de la Gironde. Calais

Not a huge fan of this type of design decisions, but loved the intervention with the crying faces 😭

https://abc7.com/videoClip/15439185/

Admittedly this post is coming from a rather selfish experience. today, i was walking around in an area and i desperately needed to use the bathroom. i was running from building to building trying to find a restroom, but all were locked or had some sort of restriction on bathroom use. i then saw porta potties and let out a sigh of relief, but when i approached them, there was padlocks on the doors. i was in disbelief. of all reasons to lock up bathrooms, how does this apply to porta potties?? arent they meant to be a way to put accessible bathrooms in places devoid of them? the whole experience made me realize that the bathroom issue is far more severe than it seems. those who publicly ridicule houseless or homeless people often complain of their poor hygiene and how they urinate or deficate in public- but often, they have no choice. in my city at least, public bathrooms not behind “customer only” restrictions can be multiple miles apart. the city simply makes it nearly impossible for houseless people to practice proper hygiene, and in my opinion lack of public bathrooms, especially ones that contain sinks and soap, can absolutely be considered hostile architecture and overall city design. and given that job interviews often wordlessly require proper hygiene in the interviewee, its just yet another way that cities and towns make it nearly impossible for homeless people to escape their situation. its disgusting.

At first I was happy the place was refurnished, but then I noticed the uneccesary "tables" on the benches

I just finished Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I had to share this with you all because it ties so perfectly into the themes of this subreddit. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read it!

So, near the end of the book, a robot called the Judge (also referred to as "God" by the main character, Uncharles, who is also a robot) decides that humanity is guilty and deserves extinction. What really struck me is that one of its key reasons—Exhibit A, no less—was a bench. Specifically, one of those benches deliberately designed to make it uncomfortable for people (especially the homeless) to sit or sleep on.

It’s kind of wild when you think about it. In a story where a robot is literally judging all of humanity, hostile architecture ends up being one of the main pieces of evidence to justify wiping out an entire species. Sure, most of humanity had already died off before the Judge handed down this final decision, but the fact that a bench meant to exclude the vulnerable is seen as emblematic of everything wrong with humans? That really hits hard. It feels so relevant to how we design public spaces in real life—where cruelty is sometimes built into the system itself.

Has anyone else come across anything like this in sci-fi or dystopian fiction that critiques real-world hostile architecture? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Though to be fair, it's too thin to sleep on anyways.

Atleast it's sleek design

Anti homeless charging devices

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof Germany

I used Google Lens to translate to english, its a Mafalda comic by Quino, an Argentinian writer.