How a street bench becomes hostile
And Zac Efron made me aware of it
Awareness is, especially this year, a reoccurring theme for me. I have always liked to say about myself that I’m quite aware with everything that is going on in the world, but I found out I had a lot of knowledge to gain. Being aware is hard, especially when it involves everyday aspects in your life.
An excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College in 2005:
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
What the hell is water if it has always been around you? The most natural thing there is and not something you are actively aware of every time you move around. This shows to me how far you can go in becoming more aware of the world that we live in.
What about that hostile street bench?
A few days ago I was watching the Netflix show: Down to Earth with Zac Efron. A series in which actor Zac Efron and wellness expert Darin Olien travel around the world and explore healthy and sustainable ways of living your life. They go to fascinating places, one of them being Paris. In the Paris episode they promote the city as a city where everyone has access to free healthy water. Very homeless friendly you could say.
I thought this was great! However, a few days later I saw this article in which countless of examples of hostile architecture are shown in Paris… Hostile architecture is a way of designing public spaces that deliberately negatively affect the homeless. Here is a visual example:
Designing park benches like this, is a subtle yet effective way of preventing homeless people from sleeping on them. And there are a lot of examples you can find: Floor spikes under covered spaces, separate chairs instead of benches, but also privatised public spaces which make it legal for authorities to remove you from the ‘public space’ if you don’t have a good reason enough to stay.
Why is this important?
Being aware of your surroundings can have big impact on the way environments are shaped around you. Just like the fish in the ocean, we move ourselves through air everyday. What if our air gets polluted by toxic substances? We don’t want that either so in most places people made regulations to keep us safe. The people from Paris were aware of the hostile architecture in their city and they stepped up. Because the more people get aware of wrongdoings against marginalised groups the more powerful voices become to change things for the better.
