In Times of Crisis, Hostile Architecture Poses a Bigger Threat Than Ever

"We were feral, wandering around the city," Ocean Howell says about his days as a professional street skater in San Francisco. In old YouTube videos, Howell can be seen kickflipping through crowded city sidewalks, accompanied by a jazzy soundtrack. "Black Rock, Banker’s Heart, Brown Marble, and the loading docks," he recalls, listing bygone skating hangouts on a recent Zoom call. "Any industrial landscape, the old naval base at Alameda, we were there."

Howell earned sponsorships and renown in the ’90s riding for Birdhouse, Tony Hawk’s skateboard company, and is still remembered today for his unmistakable "steez"—a kind of inner-city sprezzatura. But today, the only streets Howell lurks are the footpaths around Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon, where he lectures on the history of urban planning. "I saw that there was too much money coming, so I got out and went to grad school," he jokes about his career switch.

The two versions of Howell—pro skater and college professor—might seem at odds, but they share something in common: a keen awareness of hostile architecture, or design that excludes marginalized populations or prohibits certain behaviors in public spaces. "As a skateboarder, I was always attuned to the fine-grade details of urban design, circulations, flows, materiality," he says. "I knew when I was being designed against."

Howell noticed how ledges and benches began to feature broken planes, jagged edges, and rough surfaces in response to skateboarding countercultures—and how cities responded with more policing and surveillance. Today he is an expert on the subject of hostile architecture, and travels the world to consult on projects and participate in panels educating the public on its consequences.

The uncomfortable, uneven, segmented bench—a well-known symbol of hostile architecture—not only defends against skaters, but also antagonizes homeless people looking for a place to rest. But other forms of hostile architecture exist all around us. "It’s happening everywhere; architecture that defends against homelessness and skateboarding is only an extreme expression," says Howell. "Subtler versions of it are doing similar kinds of work."

With the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest dominating headlines, the world is at the brink of a new age of hostile design interventions. These two emergencies, interpreted as design problems, could be addressed through effective crowd control and surveillance—"solutions" that have the potential to exacerbate the alienation and disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable populations. Only open dialogue, education, and effective communication between the makers and users of public space can prevent the public spaces of the "new normal" from becoming more exclusive than before.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest dominating headlines, the world is at the brink of a new age of hostile design interventions.

After carefully cataloguing his experiences as both a skater and office worker in the city (Howell also worked for a time as an editor at a publishing house in San Francisco)—and after one particularly violent encounter with police—he published the paper that launched his career in academia, The Poetics of Security: Skateboarding, Urban Design, and the New Public Space. "I argued that the practice of hostile architecture is wholly integrated with the process of surveillance," he says.

According to Howell, the design of defensive interventions necessitates the careful study of people’s movements. "Whether it’s making sure you can be cornered, or that you can’t congregate, it’s about designing spaces that avoid certain outcomes and promote others," he says. "It’s not only about a space and what happens within it, but who is there and whether it keeps certain people out."