Five Ways We Design Our Cities to Make Them Inhospitable to Human Life (Photos)

It goes by many names: hostile, defensive, disciplinary. This style of architecture, which makes use of spikes, barricades, protrusions and checkpoints to prevent society’s unwanted from inhabiting public spaces, is not new. But its forms are proliferating, and it can now be found in urban centers across the globe, from Tokyo to Copenhagen.

As Alex Andreou put it in a recent Guardian article, “Urban spaces are aggressively rejecting soft, human bodies.” Andreou first noticed these examples of “anti-bum” architecture after a lost job and crumbling relationship left him out on the London streets, forced to seek shelter where he could find it. This proved more difficult than expected.

From surveillance cameras that detect the presence of loiterers to window ledges ridged with spikes, Andreou encountered a built environment that was specifically designed to keep people like him out of public view. “It reveals how corporate hygiene has overridden human considerations, especially in retail districts,” Andreou writes.

Read more: Five Ways We Design Our Cities to Make Them Inhospitable to Human Life (Photos)