Stuart Semple has never shied away from making a stand. The cornerstone of his ethos as an artist has been standing up against injustices in the art world, like making certain trademarked colors accessible to all and combatting Anish Kapoor of Vantablack infamy. More recently, Semple has set his sights on calling out “hostile architecture” throughout London, teaming up with TBWA on a shocking yet critical OOH campaign.
Hostile architecture is a design element in a public space that is intended to keep people away. It’s primarily an effort that targets the houseless community and makes sleeping and simply existing even more challenging than it already is for such a vulnerable and under-supported group.
The always thoughtful and impassioned Semple answered a few of my questions about the awareness campaign, shedding light on the evils of hostile architecture and why he felt compelled to do something about it.
(Conversation lightly edited for clarity and length.)
Can you define “hostile architecture” for our readers?
Hostile architecture is the practice of designing things to create environments that discourage people from being there or using the space in specific ways.
An example would be installing spikes in a doorway so homeless people couldn’t sleep there. Or using a high-pitched sound in a city center that young people can hear yet older people can’t, which is used to discourage skateboarding. It could be a metal bar on a bench so nobody could sleep on it.
I like to call it “hostile design” because I see it as a subversion of design, and when we refer to it as architecture, we think about buildings. I think of it more as a perversion of creativity, something used against humanity and tends to appear in things like street furniture.
[Hostile design] is a perversion of creativity, something used against humanity.
Why is raising awareness around hostile architecture so important to you?
I believe our towns, cities, high streets, and civic centers are really important. They are social spaces that we all use, and they are becoming increasingly hostile. As an artist and a designer I’ve always tried my very best to use what little talent I have to make things better for people and solve problems. Hostile design is the opposite of that; it’s using creativity to cause harm.
I want to raise awareness because hostile design can be invisible until you understand what you are looking at. It hides in plain sight. Once you see it and know what you’re looking for, you literally see it everywhere. Once we become aware of something, we start to change it. I’ve seen a lot of cities and towns changing track now because they understand the issue, and they know they won’t get away with creating cruel spaces.
The more the public understands this, the more our leaders will be under pressure to stop doing it. I hope that in the future, we start to look at proper solutions for homelessness and anti-social behavior rather than using design to move the problem on to somewhere else. I want to see our public spaces being inclusive, compassionate, and helpful.
How did your idea for this campaign develop?
I was working with a big US city, and one of the things I was doing was designing a train station. I found myself in quite bureaucratic meetings with the transit authority. It wasn’t long before they started trying to co-opt my design and make sure it repelled homeless people, skateboarders, and drug users. My scheme was much more humane than that, but they pushed back hard. I remember telling them I didn’t want the gig, even though it was (and probably still is) the biggest thing I’ve ever walked away from. I couldn’t bring myself to be part of something like that.
I got home to my hometown of Bournemouth, where I noticed metal bars on the benches in the high street. I’d probably walked past them a million times. But this time, I could see they’d been retrofitted so homeless people couldn’t sleep on them. I took a photo of it, put it on Facebook, and explained what it was. The next day, I woke up, and the post had a million shares. People all over the world were saying they had similar things in their local areas. I knew it was important and something that needed to be challenged.
I launched HostileDesign.org and worked with the homeless community in Bournemouth to decorate the benches, turning them into art installations called ‘love benches.’ It was all over the news, and the council took all the bars off the benches in the middle of the night. People from all over the world started ordering the stickers from the website and tagging hostile design in their communities. Recently, I teamed up with TBWA, and they installed posters over doorway spikes in London.
The potency comes from the fact that the photographs are life-size; you are confronted with the harsh reality of a human coming into violent contact with the spikes.
What was the installation process like?
It was quite easy. Sadly, the spikes themselves are so nasty that pushing a poster through them wasn’t hard. What I really like about the campaign is how direct it looks and that the posters are made to measure the [installation] site.
How has the campaign been received so far?
It’s been incredible. It’s got a lot of people talking and helped push the campaign and dialogue forward. The potency comes from the fact that the photographs are life-size; you are confronted with the harsh reality of a human coming into violent contact with the spikes.