Building Summary:

In the article ‘The London Spikes Controversy: Homelessness, Urban Securitisation and the Question of ‘Hostile Architecture’, Jame Petty writes on how the controversy of June 2014 sparked a major debate about hostile design. In South London, spikes were implemented outside an apartment to deter the homeless to sleep outside the building, and this left people divided.

There had been a rise in intentionally “designing out” targeted identities and certain unwanted behaviors. It is noted by Petty that ‘hostile architecture’ is a more recent term, and other terms include defensive or disciplinary architecture. Those words, however, lean more towards the designer’s justifications for the strategic barriers. One example of hostile design is benches that one is able to only sit on. They are designed to be unusable other than to sit on and discourage skateboards to use structure to do tricks on. There are other ways people are able to apply methods of social control, such as having ultraviolet lights to put off drug use in bathrooms, as well as having no shortage of CCTV cameras, as mentioned in the article.

When talking about hostile architecture, the homeless population is central to the discussion, as they are “unjustly targeted”, according to Petty. While the homeless are not always caused by hostile design, it cannot be ignored that the methods are impacting their quality of life as they can not comfortably sleep where they would like to. With urban planning, it is many times a goal for the city to look as ‘presentable’ as possible in terms of urban aesthetics and to hide its “distasteful” (visible) attributes.

Building Interpretation:

Whole Foods Market as a whole is pretty exclusionary to begin with, as their target consumers are the upper middle class, by having an image of healthy and organic products. Even the classical music as their white noise hints at who they welcome into their store. With their highly marked prices, it is clear that Whole Foods isn’t affordable to the “majority’ demographic. In terms of spatial planning and design of their store physically, the market can be considered private and segregated. The building is located assisted from major complexes and roads, so those who are not explicitly going to Whole Foods do not end up wandering into the area. On top of this, the sidewalks around the store are as minimal and narrow as possible, and this leads directly to the parking lot, so potential loiterers, including those struggling with homelessness, will not idle around the area. Whole Foods maintains a visible aesthetic that allows them to almost cherry-pick who is welcome. As mentioned in this week’s reading, there are ways that people are able to solicit social control, and we see one of these systems in action at the grocery store with plenty of security cameras around the space.

Exterior Façade of Whole Foods.