hostile architecture en · NOUN
Meanings
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(uncountable) A type of architecture and design strategy for buildings, roads, park benches, etc, which aims to discourage homeless people, skateboarders, or others from sitting, sleeping, skateboarding or otherwise using a space, for example by covering it with spikes.
On a human level, the new facility [Moynihan Train Hall] is a disaster. Like so many other places defined by the principles of hostile architecture, there's almost nowhere to sit, lest a homeless person might find a place to take a nap.
2025 April 19, Jacob Silverman, “Welcome to Slop World”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 16:The Camden Bench is not an anomaly: more and more, our cities are being designed to keep those deemed as ‘undesirables’ out. By its very nature this is ‘hostile architecture’—urban design with a focus on exclusion, design that inhibits community and tells us who is welcome and who is not.
2020, Noreena Hertz, The Lonely Century, →ISBN:
Translations (4)
pt arquitetura hostil (Translations) · es arquitectura hostil (Translations) · de feindliche Architektur (Translations) · de Anti-Obdachlosen-Architektur (Translations)