Hostile Architecture: Behind the Buzzword

Anyone living in Portland for five or more years has witnessed stark changes in our urban landscape and climate. Heat islands, wildfires, drought, and lack of infrastructure for both heat and cold made this formerly temperate city a challenge to adapt to. 

Many of the issues with our urban landscape are incidental. Past urban designers did not plan for the dramatic shifts in population or climate that we’re experiencing today.

However, there are now emboldened design efforts to intentionally marginalize and exclude ‘certain’ people from public view and life that further impact livability for all. 

The dramatic rise in cost of living has only increased tensions around Portland’s livability. With a 22% increase in rent, COVID-19-related unemployment, and inflation, unsheltered homelessness has exploded in the metro area.

While we ‘wait’ for more affordable housing to be built, no expense has been spared in constructing exclusionary public architecture. The contemporary and popular term for this phenomenon is “Hostile Architecture.” 

Hostile Architecture (def.): is an urban-design strategy that uses elements of the built environment to purposefully guide or restrict behavior. 

Painfully slanted bus stop benches, oddly placed flower pots, boulders cemented to the ground, and spikes have all been used to prevent forms of rest or settlement in Portland. This type of urban design specifically targets people who use public spaces more frequently, like poor, disabled, and unhoused people.  

Prior to the zeitgeist of the term “Hostile Architecture” there was a long history of exclusionary and defensive design. Large walls and moats seem like odd historic hiccups, romanticized in media and history, but nevertheless served to keep certain people in and others out.

Societies have since found far more subtle ways to tell people they are not welcome in a space.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a critical bridge in design theory for  Hostile Architecture. 

Cara Chellaw, a Doctoral Student in Urban Planning at McGill University, put it succinctly:

“This philosophy is based on the idea that the built environment can be designed in a way that prevents crime as well as the perception of crime… CPTED is built upon three strategies—natural access control, natural surveillance and territorial reinforcement.”

The idea is that we need to build our cities in a way that we can self-police each other to reduce crime and produce order. However, there are many critiques to using urban design for issues that can be more adequately addressed with root cause solutions.  

Chellaw continues, “Using design as a technological solution to address social issues like substance use, mental illness and homelessness merely displaces the problem rather than confronting it.”

Consulting the Experts

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with local architectural designers and urban planners to discuss these important issues. We talked about their views on hostile architecture, limitations to architectural design, and visions of a landscape that better meets the needs of all.  

First, I asked each individual what architecture means to each of them. 

Suenn Ho, Principal and Designer of RESOLVE Architecture + Planning, shared her sentiments, “In order to be a good designer, I need to know economics, anthropology, and political science to do a good job… from a design perspective, importance is focused on people, place, and their stories. Approaching it in this way makes every project a unique solution.”

Dr. Marisa Zapata shared a similar philosophy, “Architecture is inherently about people, place, and nature to me.” She is an Associate Professor of Land-Use Planning at Portland State University and Director of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. “How we build expresses our values, and views about our relationships to one another, animals, plants…”

When I brought up “Hostile Architecture,” however, there was a divergence in thought.  

While Marisa Zapata shared a common definition and clear examples of Hostile Architecture, Suenn Ho opts to not use the term at all. “...I feel that term is a buzzword; a style or trend…We need to bring it back to: is this place difficult to access? Does it respect people?” Further describing style as, “...unfortunate. It reflects an impatience in understanding the uniqueness in every project…and is for people who want a shortcut.”

This was the first time I’ve heard an ethical critique of the term Hostile Architecture, and it gave me pause.

Can we all challenge ourselves to look beyond dominant cultural narratives to describe the nuance and individuality of a situation? 

To round out this conversation, Forrest Perkins, local architectural designer, added, “Ultimately, hostile architecture is often influenced by a capitalist mindset of ‘nothing is free,’ this design seeks to avoid someone ‘taking advantage’ of the project in some way.”

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

This led us to another point of convergence. 

Architecture is fundamentally limited by who is funding it. 

Architects and designers are not immune to the pressures of the free market. Most professional architects are at the will of their clients, and thereby refrain from political action. Currently, there is a recession in the architectural field. Architects are being laid off or forced into part time work. The reason? Private investors are slowing down and stopping projects to wait until interest rates go down. 

“We [have to] design and build privately funded projects that have the best profit margins and the smallest amount of investment risk.“ Forrest Perkins shared, a reality echoed by Suenn Ho. “Design became an accounting job. When everything becomes formulaic and about money, design suffers.” After working for years in the corporate sector, Ho and her husband decided to open a private firm so they can fully embody their holistic design approach.

Though working at PSU limits Marisa Zapata’s ability to physically design spaces, she is frequently consulted on urban planning projects. And much like everyone else interviewed, she shared that you can give great advice, but projects are ultimately determined by funding and client motives.

Countering hostile architecture can feel hopeless, but at Sisters we’re interested in systemic solutions and imagining better futures. In this spirit, I asked each interviewee what they would like to see in Portland’s architectural landscape. 

Forrest Perkins had many ideas, and here is one of note: “What if the City Housing Bureau just directly hired Architects to design housing on the plots of land and empty buildings they already own all over town?”

Marisa Zapata shared, “...I want to see benches that are comfortable for long periods of time… [and] I want to see ADA and trauma-informed design in building codes required in all development.” With additional comment, “...people [are] really not getting that housing is key to ending homelessness. It's not housing only for some people, but it does need to be at least the real offer of housing.” 

Suenn Ho adds, “There are no simple answers or solutions…we need to think outside of cultural individualism that keep us isolated… [and] make design a participatory process.”

You are welcome here.