In the US, we’re starting to see some pushback against hostile architecture, and in this vein, [benhobby] built a swanky public power and Wi-Fi access point.
This beautiful piece of infrastructure has 400 watts of solar plugged into 1.2 kWh of battery storage, and can dispense those electrons through any of its 120 VAC, USB-C, or USB-A plugs. The uprights are 3″ aluminum tubing attached to a base consisting of cinder blocks and HDPE panels. Power receptacles are housed in 3D printed enclosures with laser cut acrylic fronts. Three outdoor lights illuminate the stop at night, triggered by a photosensor.
The electronics and battery for the system, including the networking hardware, are in a weatherproof box on each side that can be quickly disconnected allowing field swaps of the hardware. Troubleshooting can then take place back at a workshop. One of the units has already been deployed and has been well-received. [benhobby] reports “There’s one in the wild right now, and it gets plenty of visitors but no permanent tenants.”
Want to see some more interesting hacks for public infrastructure? Check out this self-cooling bus stop, this bus bloom filter, or this public transit display.
Very, very nice!
Acrylic fronts for the outlets is the wrong choice, should be a more robust plastic such as polycarbonate. Acrylic will break, in the manner of glass, and polycarbonate will bend in the manner of aluminum. Protective shields (such as protective glasses) are made from polycarbonate.
Other than that, looks very nice. USB-C and USB-A are power limited, I wonder how limited the AC output is, and if someone could drain the batteries by plugging in something big such as a microwave oven. Maybe limit the AC outlets to 250 watts (like USB-C) for chargers and small items.
(This is not a criticism, more a wondering of how the unit will fare in the real world with homeless people and such.)
And acrylic so easily “tagged” by vandals.
Only one seat.
“Hostile architecture”? Is it april 1st already?
Hostile Architecture is stuff that is designed explicitly to make people stay there for less time. It includes stuff as simple as removing public seating to stuff as outwardly aggressive as adding spikes on flat surfaces to keep people from laying down on them. It’s not a joke and I don’t get why you would imply that it is.
” It’s not a joke and I don’t get why you would imply that it is.”
Maybe because it’s a phrase that implies something inanimate (architecture) has feelings (hostile) and it’s a phrase that “todd3464” has possibly never heard. I know *I* had never heard of it before and my first thought was a building that intentionally falls down on people’s heads.
I like your definition of hostile architecture more Mr. Pedantic. Any time I hear it from now on I’m going to imagine a 10 story flat with mean eyebrows superimposed on it, waiting to collapse on foot traffic walking nearby
Inanimate things can be termed hostile. The moon, being inhospitable to life, is a hostile environment.
I had to use Wikipedia. It seems to be an US American invention, just like passive aggressiveness?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture
Here in Germany, the term exists as defensive architecture or anti-homless architecture. And its use isn’t widespread, it seems fo me.
Perhaps because it’s questionable and because it doesn’t solve the problem (just gets it out of sight).
Asides from uninviting tram stations without a roof or a bank,
personally I haven’t encountered such architecture so far. 🤷♂️
A mild form of hostile architecture can be found in many burger restaurants. Tables too small to comfortably sit at, arranging seats so that they are facing backwards towards the entrance or to narrow pathways, tiny (intentional) details that make you want to leave as soon as your meal is finished.
That’s a good point, actually. It makes sense to me. Thanks. 🙂
Actually, once you look for it, you’ll see it everywhere.
Just the other day, my son asked me why there were these 10 cm (non-sharp) spikes on the flat space in-between the escalators going down into the subway. He said “otherwise, it would be perfect for sliding down” and I said “aha!”.
Benches with little metal corner things. They’re not hostile to people who want to sit — maybe they look ornamental even — but they’re super hostile to skateboarders who want to do a slide/grind along the edge.
You see a lot more of it in places that were designed in the 1990s or later, but that’s just a feeling. I’d buy a book on the history of hostile architecture. Anyone have any good recs?
@Elliot Williams: I’ve been recommended Theo Deutinger’s Handbook of Tyranny, Robert Rosenberger’s Callous Objects: Designs against the Homeless, Gordan Savicic and Selena Savic’s Unpleasant Design, and Nan Ellin’s Architecture of Fear.
Handbook of Tyranny covers far more, from crowd dispersal and refugee camps to prison cells and bunker buster bombs, but looks like a great work.
Callous Objects: Designs against the Homeless is clearly focused on anti-homeless designs, but I feel its 79 pages are a bit thin. Absolutely worth a look, and it is available online here:
https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/callous-objects
Unpleasant Design, like Callous Objects, focuses on anti-homeless designs specifically, and seems to cover the topic in more depth than the latter.
Last, Architecture of Fear. Again not focused only on anti-homeless architecture, this collection of essays covers the urban landscape through security measures around a house, to the rooms and even the digital.
Note that I have not actually read any of these books, though I have skimmed some PDFs and ordered every one of them since they seemed interesting. Thanks for the push! :)
Or also when there’s just a deliberately insufficient amount of seating versus the intended amount of people using the building. E.G. I remember a building on a college campus with halls and stairs and such sized to be far more than sufficient for the number of students who’d have classes there – and sized to look good in a tour – but before and after class, it was hard to find anywhere to exist and to charge the devices you needed for class. Space was wasted on artistic but hostile design. There were few seats of any kind and fewer still that you could actually use to do schoolwork or could sit in for more than a few minutes without pain. Sitting on the floor against a wall would be better, but somehow there were few places where that was possible despite all the wasted space.
“deliberately insufficient” or just designed by morons who didn’t think about how the building was actually going to be used? Anyone who designs a “modern” workplace should be forced to work in it for a year.
I don’t think that’s a good example of hostile architecture.
I agree that the bench and side walk spikes are though. Mainly because we have a clear statement of intent from the people who put them there that that is the sole purpose for them existing. We know the intent is malicious and so can rightly identify the result as hostile. Inanimate object can not be hostile on their own and so their hostility must be imbued by their creators.
In the case of the burger joint all those choices are also choices a person would make if they were trying to maximize the amount of customers their dining area could serve. Smaller tables mean more occupancy and less surface area to clean. Now it’s possible that they did make these choices maliciously but as there are other reasons to make them you’d have to prove that malice really was the impetus. In many cases making these choice could actually be seen as welcoming (maybe not to those who want to linger) but to the average customer who wants to have a quick meal at a fast food joint and not have to wait for a table it’s very welcoming.
It’s a matter of philosophy and semantics once you say that the creator has to be the one to imbue the hostility, so to an extent there’s simply no consensus on your definition there. I think if we go back to the phrase “hostile environment” and acknowledge that it includes inhospitable barren places with no significant hostile lifeforms, then in common usage it must be acceptable to consider the place itself hostile to life / humans, without any actual intent associated, but still.
Or, if you’ll pardon a bit of a hypothetical: Alice may not hold hostile intent towards Eve, but perhaps Alice gets fed up with Bob and bans anyone with a three-letter palindromic name from entering her store. Eve would be right to consider the action hostile even if it’s more debatable whether Alice herself counts as hostile since Alice’s hostile intent is not directed at Eve.
Well, a bank at every tram station might be a little over the top, but a bench would be nice!
‘tschuldigung ^^
A bench? Hmm. I remember we had a large one in school, in technology lessons way down in the cellar. That’s were we built our stuff on, were we worked on things. ^^
PS: Thanks for the hint, though, I got it. English is a strange, but funny language sometimes. Hah. Bench.. 😅
“Hostile Architecture” is a term that has been around several years now and is spoken of a lot.
I’m pretty sure it’s in here.. don’t have time to re-watch it to be sure. But the concept certainly is!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liptMbjF3EE&t=1335s
Very nice.
In the first night after install the charger and panels will be ripped out to get at the copper wire so it won’t matter so much when the batteries catch fire in two weeks.
I have no connection whatsoever to the linked article, to be clear. Locally, places where publicly available 120VAC outlets are tend to be nicely cared for by the same people that use them. Keeping the (almost universally Android) smartphone charged provides the lifeline to day labor jobs, shelter, food.
I’m pretty sure if you tried to steal the copper you would discover a large group of people who would be more than willing to defend that resource.
(120 VAC outlets tend to come in pairs, and vending machines only use one of them. File that away under “things you hope you don’t need to know”.)
Unfortunately, that’s not how it is, in many cases, even if it’s in people’s best interests to keep the resource in good shape. Sometimes, if nothing else, people end up relying on public resources specifically because they have a pattern of making choices that turn out to go against their own interests. And in many cases, even the ones who aren’t destructive aren’t going to stick their neck out to defend something that’s not theirs.
Sounded like a good idea til heard solar and battery.
Cheaper & easier to deploy than having to run mains power to wherever this is installed. What’s the beef?
Very nice project. It is always good when people with knowledge and talent do things for the good of mankind instead of the good of oneself.
I think the same. What’s technically still missing though, is wind protection.
Tram stations/bus stations in my place have a similar problem.
They’re open on the left and right now.
Back in the late 20th century, they still had walls there often.
Made a big difference for the travelers in winter when there were icy winds.
I’m thinking of something like this, a little glas house:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zwickau_-_bus_stop_at_night_(aka).jpg
The issue with enclosed bus spaces and why they’ve mostly gone away is too many people were trapped and attacked in them. Blocking the wind blocks avenues of escape.
*Your link is slightly broken, leaving the jpg out makes it not work.
WTF?! Trapped? In which place was this, Afghanistan? 😂
Ok, sorry, not funny. 😥
But seriously, I never heard of this issue before. It never crossed my mind, either. But it makes sense in principle, of course. If there are such people around, it’s a trap.
In my place, there are crimes, too, of course, but not on this scale I suppose.
A tram station/bus station isn’t exactly a crime scene.
Or so I thought until now.
Ok, I guess there are also mischievous figures here, waiting in anonymity. But they’re usually keeping to themselves without much talking.
A typical station is a calm, almost boring place were strangers are waiting, playing with their phones, are resting a bit (close their eyes while sitting there) or do occasionally stand up looking for the bus/tram.
Some people do small talk, too, a situation which scared me the most so far. I was often afraid to be required to participate a small talk eventually.
But in general, aside from this, it’s not exactly a place for a panic situation.
The glass stations are usually open on the front, also.
It’s just left/right and behind the bank, err, bench were plexiglass/acrylic material is being installed.
Or used to be installed, rather.
Many stations are open now, sadly. Well, they have some lights installed on the roof, at least.
Telephone cells (phone booths) used to be closed cabins, too, I remember. Now they’re gone all together. I hope those public tram and bus stations do remain, at all.
PS: Yes, you’re right about the link. No idea what happened. I’ve pasted the working link. 🤷♂️
The reddit comment about those holes in the roof brackets being finger-removers for any climbing children may be valid.. they look quite sharp and reachable.
That’s a decent design although the aluminium construction looks a bit fragile compared to the usual standards for street furniture which (round here) would tend to use much sturdier galvanised + powder coated steel poles.
Unfortunately this stuff tends to need to be designed to be highly vandal-proof, or at least “group of bored teenagers proof” which is a major challenge either way. Someone *WILL* climb on that roof made from flexible solar panels, someone WILL stick chewing gum in those USB ports, etc.
Looks like something like that would be destroyed in a tornado or hurricane.
It really doesn’t look that heavy. Here in the USA, we have bus stops that look like they could be repurposed to something like this. My only concern would be some joker coming in and wiring the USB ports to 120V to destroy other people’s equipment. Sort of like never plugging an unknown USB flash drive into your laptop.
From a ham radio perspective, very nicely done. It’s a sad statement to the world when you have to always have to prepare for the worst. In all honesty though, I don’t see something like this lasting in Seattle.
With all the crime etc. that is going on down there, this thing would be stripped down to its mounting brackets and be gone before the police arrive. $8000 to make one, not a bad price, but in Seattle or other inner cities that have crime? You may as well flush $8000 down the toilet.
Seattle? The one with the Space Needle? Is Seattle that bad really now ? 😞
I’m concerned/sad because I believe to remember that’s the city our English books in school had featured when we switched from learning British English (BE) to American English (AE, aka Simplified English :D) in English class. Nottingham was the place the stories had taken place before, I think.
No. You can probably ignore anyone for whom Seattle is a good example of an “inner city”. It’s also not “down there” from pretty much anywhere in the US, so the whole comment is suspicious.
Yes, Seattle being the epicenter of all of those tornados, hurricanes, and (*checks map*) scary southern locale…
It may be well advised to just provide AC outlets and let the user provide his own charger, to avoid tampering with USB outlets.
Fetch… The comfy chair!
The panels would operate more efficiently if they were tilted toward the sun, but that may cause an esthetic or architectural clash. Well, nobody ever said good designs were easy.
Looks cool … Not sure about the efficiency of the curved roof Vs a south facing (northern hemisphere) angled roof… Also unfortunately it’d last about a microsecond in the UK for some git vandalised it ….that’s why we can’t have nice stuff in the UK…