mastodon.ar.al is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
This is my personal fediverse server.

Administered by:

Server stats:

1
active users

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 I'm against hostile design, but I don't see any tangible evidence that these book benchers are in fact that?

@aral No, I need some tangible proof other than you saying it is so.
Is that bad of me?

@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.

@aral @duncanbell The simple statement was also a little too little for me. So I looked for pictures of these book benches with people. They seem suitable for sitting.

The profile does not seem completely unsuitable for lying down, but ….

Hostile design? I hate it, but in this case I need more evidence.

Personally, I find it extremely difficult to judge the comfort of furniture visually alone. I have already been blatantly wrong in the past.

@aral I'm looking at their size, location, *other services* and I'm not seeing a crime of commission here, at all.

Maybe, maybe the final product could be considered at the beginning of the "hostile design" scale. But I would argue almost certainly not by design.

I've designed seating, just for reference.