Stuart Semple has launched HostileDesign.org, a site that allows members of the public around the world to name and shame councils and city planners who commission pieces of ‘hostile design’ to engender inhuman degrees of exclusion and discrimination.
Through Instagram, users can photograph and share images of local design crimes, making the site a global online database of hostile design. The aim is to enable people to spot ‘hostile design’, as so often it blends into its environment. By making hostile design more visible we can all learn to spot it. If we keep the pressure up, we can hopefully eradicate it and shift the culture in a more positive way.
Semple’s idea was born when he saw and photographed anti-homeless bars on benches in his local city of Bournemouth. When his Facebook posts went viral – with more than 1 million views on the first day – he immediately began plotting the campaign. The artist said he wants people to wake up to what he believes is an ‘immoral practice’. Already picked up by The Times, the Independent, the Mail, the BBC, ITV, The Art Newspaper, ABC National Radio, Hyperallergic and LADbible, to name but a few, the story shows no sign of waning.
“Design should be used to make things better for people,”
Semple said.
“I didn’t spend time at art and design school to learn to make stuff that makes people’s lives worse. I knew straight away what it was because I spend a lot of my time looking at public furniture – this is designed for one reason and one reason only and that’s to tell homeless people they are not welcome here”
Design can improve lives; however, it can also be used to exclude and cause harm. Designers should be looking for ways to make environments happier and more inclusive. To this effect, Semple is currently working towards a major city-wide project in Denver, HAPPY CITY. HAPPY CITY launches across Denver in May 2018, and serves a sole purpose – to incite widespread happiness by breaking down social barriers, increasing connection among strangers and fostering wellbeing.
As the artist said:
“All metal bars do is divide us. They don’t solve the deeper problems and issues. It’s time we looked at the causes of societal issues rather than designing them out of the public realm. Public furniture should be designed to bring people together, not keep them away from each other. This kind of hostile architecture is the opposite of what I’m about.”
His HostileDesign.org campaign has already been supported by rapper and broadcaster Professor Green whose Instagram feed slammed the decision to install the bars, asking:
“What’s the message here? ‘Hey you poor sods with no safety net – you better really hope life doesn’t throw any **** at you now! And God forbid you make a bad life decision! Cause you won’t have the ‘comfort’ of this bench to sleep on! Ha!’ Again, nothing done to tackle the problem, just something to make it more invisible so we can pretend it isn’t happening.”
