Aral Balkan
This makes me very angry.
These are anti-homeless benches designed to look pleasing. It’s called hostile architecture. They’re meant to be uncomfortable to discourage sleeping on.
The people who designed these are assholes. They’re decorators, not designers.
A designer makes things to improve the world for everyone. A decorator takes otherwise unpalatable injustices and disguises them with aesthetics in an attempt to make them inoffensive or even desirable.
Be a designer, not a decorator.
Aral Balkan
…The benches are marketed as “Designer Book Benches” by a company called OverHertz in Bulgaria.
https://www.overhertz.com/service-book-benches
Hostile architecture doesn’t just exist in the physical world. Big Tech and the surveillance-based mainstream technology of Silicon Valley is concocted by decorators not designers.
I once gave a talk to a roomful of designers called “Design or Decoration” where I go into the distinction further: https://ar.al/talks/#design-or-decoration
Aral Balkan
@SebastienK Of course we should have housing (and healthcare and other social services) for all.
Yet something tells me that the kind of people who commission and “design” (decorate) benches that cannot be slept on are also the kinds of people who don’t believe in a social safety net and in universal housing or healthcare.
Something about being fine with cruelty and the suffering of others…
Sebastien 🌍
@aral hostile architecture is indeed a real problem. But I do like this design.
We could also look from another perspective: People should not be sleeping on benches. If we build benches with the idea people should be able to sleep on it we also signal that it is okay that people are homeless
Hostile architecture is bad but we should not be designing benches with people sleeping on it in mind.
Housing is the answer, not benches 🤷🏽♂️
Aral Balkan
@l05tchild Enraging!
Joe
Sorry to post a YT link. But Louis Rossmann, former NYC resident and employer, mentioned that, too. Homeless people used to warm on the ventilation shaft exhausts of the sub. Look, what they did to prevent this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAfncqwI-D8
Aral Balkan
@tomw Don’t forget that the goal is to deceive people (“look at how nice it looks, don’t think about anything else”) so we can’t really blame the people who get deceived. They’re victims too. If, once they see – or are shown – what lies beyond the aesthetic, they are appalled, that’s because they’re basically good people. And we should celebrate that :)
Tom Walker
@aral It's interesting to see the original post of this image that just basically says "look at these book benches" and the replies say "wow" etc, then your exact same image with different framing and the replies say "how terrible"...
Kay :heart_bi: :tinoflag:
@aral why do you call those book benches hostile? They're firm, smooth and have a natural indentation to snuggle into. I could sleep on a #BookBench.
Images of #HostileArchitecture in the linked article are worse
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a2564-15-examples-of-hostile-architecture-around-the-world/
Aral Balkan
@Kay First off, one should be rather hesitant about making statements about how one could happily sleep on one from the comfort of one’s own home and cushy bed. Besides that, though, the whole point (no pun intended) is that the examples you give are actually better (if we can use that word in this context at all) because we can see that they’re hostile. There is no decoration there. They shout it with their whole lungs. The #BookBench is far more insidious. It looks friendly but is hostile.
Aral Balkan
@henry79 @SebastienK “Violent” is the right word. We’re so primed to recognise violence as an immediate, kinetic act that we often fail to see it when it is woven into the very fabric of our existence.
Henry (he/him)
@aral @SebastienK also, if someone sleeps on a bench *out of choice* that should be okay too. Even if no one were homeless, it would be a weirdly controlling design. But given that people are actually forced to sleep rough, it’s a violent piece of design. The fact that they are meant to look pretty somehow makes them worse than other anti-sleeping designs, for me. Someone went to considerable lengths to do this.
Aral Balkan
@SebastienK There’s probably a good reason for that, Sebastien; you were likely never left in a situation where a bench was your only solution.
Sebastien 🌍
@KAOS sure, good examples but I can't remember a single situation where I have seen a bench as the solution. There is probably very good design for that but I don't think the typical standard bench is that design as I can't seem to picture it @henry79 @aral
KAOS
@henry79 @aral @SebastienK ...for example, even in a world without homelessness people with back problems or leg problems on a walk might want to lie down for a moment.
Aral Balkan
@SebastienK The question isn’t either/or, though. No one’s saying people should sleep on benches. What I’m saying is that if the world is so fucked that people are left with no choice but to sleep on a bench than those benches shouldn’t be specifically created to be as hostile as possible to those people.
Am I just not able to articulate this clearly?
Sebastien 🌍
@aral wrong,, I would have preferred housing over that bench 🤷🏽♂️
As an ex user I really can't recommend any public bench as a sleeping spot.
Aral Balkan
@duncanbell Do you need a written confession?
Duncan Bell 無為
@aral I'm against hostile design, but I don't see any tangible evidence that these book benchers are in fact that?
OpenDNA⚙️
@aral Hostile architecture exists but that's not an example. Bulgaria's homeless rate is so low, and the incidence in cities so rare, that there's no concept of anti-homeless measures of any kind.
It's western solution to a western problem which Bulgarians only learn about by visiting the west.
Aral Balkan
@opendna According to what I’ve been reading homelessness was only formally defined by the government in 2018 and there are no official statistics collected.
The statistics that do exist seem to paint a different picture:
https://www.homelessworldcup.org/bulgaria
“The most vulnerable groups of people that end up without shelter are refugees, the Roma minority, elderly people who have become a burden to their families or young adults who have previously been in foster home facilities.”
Aral Balkan
@duncanbell Not at all. I’m just wondering what more evidence you need than the object that is in front of your eyes.
As a designer, I can tell you that design is a deliberate process. Things rarely happen by accident.
The possibilities are:
- The designers messed up (it doesn’t look like it, they seem rather proud of it)
- They unconsciously codified their privilege and biases into the object
- They specifically chose the affordances they did
Regardless, the object itself is hostile.
Duncan Bell 無為
@aral No, I need some tangible proof other than you saying it is so.
Is that bad of me?
Aral Balkan
@quentinsf @markrussell Please look up “sealioning” and kindly go away.
Quentin Stafford-Fraser
@markrussell @aral Yes, agreed - I'd be interested to know whether you have any evidence that that was part of the design brief, or if it's just your own assertion that (a) benches should be provided as sleeping places and (b) that people are mean? I just thought, "That's a cute design, and the rain will run off it well".
markrussell
@aral Are you sure these have been designed to keep people from sleeping on them? There are much more easier ways of doing that like just adding an arm rest in the middle of the bench. To me they just look like a bench designed to look like a book. Can't really avoid a curved surface with such a design.
Aral Balkan
@Cleopatra They’re curved.
Cleopatra
@aral
What am i missing? Why wouldn't you be able to sleep on them? They seem a bit short but that's it.
Aral Balkan
@CharmingMalcontent Wow. Zero humanity.
Charming Malcontent
@aral here's another ass hat...
Aral Balkan
@nosaj Nothing gets by you does it? Off you trot now.
Nosaj :boost_ok: :loading:
Is this a mastodonian example of using a large following to spread misinformation?
Catweazle
@stooovie , sadly yes
https://youtu.be/t4fSmIGoIQU
But not only benches
Aral Balkan
@Catweazle Please tell me that’s from an art-house sci-fi dystopia film of some sort. These aren’t actually deployed somewhere on our planet are they?
Jiří Fiala Total Landscaping
@Catweazle is that real? 😳
Catweazle
@aral , there are worst examples, much worse
The "goodness" of capitalism
Aral Balkan
@Catweazle Looks like it was a student “design” from ~10 years ago. Unless it was an ironic critique on social injustice, I hope that student was expelled without a degree. What the actual fuck?!
http://inventorspot.com/articles/iron_maiden_bench_excellent_unless_youre_short_cash
Aral Balkan
@Keith19 Oh have I, Keith, have I really?
[dramatic music plays]
PS. You might call it defensive design. It depends on whose side you’re on. I’m on the side of the folks you’re defending yourself from and I call it hostile architecture.
Klaus Klein
@aral I think you have gone too far. It’s not even anti-homeless design. Cities or some places are full of uncomfortable benches. This is what we call defensive design. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WeyLEe1T0yo
Per Axbom
This appears to be the best clue I’ve found:
“Artist Fabian Brunsing tackled similar themes with a piece which criticizes the privatization of our public spaces.”
Per Axbom
Aral Balkan
@Picowlo What are you, some sort of communist? 😜
Paul Cowling
@aral
Imagine if all the money spent on making life difficult for the homeless was spent on, say, giving them somewhere to stay.
#homelessness #humanity
Aral Balkan
@tannermireault “Scatter a homeless crowd?” These are people, not rats we’re talking about. Kindly go away.
Tanner Mireault
@aral Public benches are not supposed to be used as public beds, it’s better to deter people from sleeping there rather than having to publicly scatter a homeless crowd.
Aral Balkan
@allisonhooper Not at all. This sort of “design” (decoration) is crafted to make you focus on the aesthetic. When you’re duped by such a thing, you’re the victim. And we don’t blame the victim in these parts.
Allison
Ah. I see your point. I was thoughtless to like this.
R.D. Wojcik
@aral we should deisgn a seat cap that counters the curve and make it look like a book mark.
Aral Balkan
@RDWojcik Love this! Now *that’s* design.
Aral Balkan
@BigX Wow. *smh*
BigX
@aral The ultimate insanity of hostile architecture is exhibited at Christ Church where there is a statue depicting Jesus asleep on a park bench, all the other benches on site have centre armrests.
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