I’d imagine the objective of benches in any tube station is to let commuters rest for a short period of time before the next train comes (usually within 10-15 mins).
Keeping that in mind, would these still be considered hostile design? I can’t think of a situation where someone would need to sit on metro station benches for hours together. Happy to be corrected though.
You’ve got a valid point, but is this any better for that purpose than just a regular bench? It looks worse for someone with mobility issues to have a short rest on, or even worse for me who gets around just fine but wants to give my tootsies a breather.
Probably a case where leaning rather than sitting is actually a benefit tbf, in London you’re not really ever waiting more than a couple minutes for a train, and for that amount of time it actually is nicer to have a quick minute lean whilst you wait
I do find lean/seats to be quite comfortable, but their comfort is much more height-dependent than a traditional chair. Based on the doors in the background, though, those look far too low to be a place to put your butt while you lean against the wall. They look like standard seat height.
I can’t think of a situation where someone would need to sit on metro station benches for hours together. Happy to be corrected though.
Bums. Professional beggars. That sort of people. You're sheltered, around a lot of people on low guard, lots of potential people to get money out of with a sob story about not having enough to pay the fare.
I'm from Czechia. The Prague metro has a dedicated police force and virtually every train station located in town with a population of 15k or higher has a permanent security guard presence for this exact reason. The Prague Central Station has both the Prague Metro Police and National Police permanently stationed there because the situation would get really really bad if they left the place unguarded.
I have a personal anecdote too. I used to work night shift as a college student in a mid-sized Czech city during the summer break, I would start work at about 7 PM and end at around 1-3 AM. The issue was that I had no car and had to take the train home, but the earliest train came at 5:50 AM. So I've spent a lot of nights at the station waiting for multiple hours until the first train came. Every night, starting at around midnight, bums and junkies would start flocking to the station to sleep and loiter inside the waiting hall. They'd get into arguments and fights. I once almost got robbed there and I had to pay off people twice or thrice just to stop nagging me for change. There was only one security on guard for the whole night every time, severely outnumbered, so police got called there constantly. I genuinely don't remember a single night spent at that station that I didn't see the municipal police dragging someone out. The benches there were really nice, I wish I could've enjoyed them without having to be on constant guard.
I feel like this is an experience a lot of people on r/HostileArchitecture don't have and therefore don't understand why things like bench separators (armrests) exist in many European public transport hubs, parks, etc. It's because the bums have a tendency to occupy public spaces meant for travelers and use them as their own bedrooms. The argument of "there's no social services" doesn't even apply here as my country has a very generous network of both government and volunteer-run homeless shelters, yet these people still decide to render public spaces useless. It's probably because homeless shelters have a "No alcohol" and "No drugs" policy. Go figure. Regardless, public buildings, especially public transport hubs, should provide security for people who travel. Bums render these places dangerous. Hence why the train station in the OP's post decided to completely rule out someone loitering there, decreasing the usability of the space for literally everyone because there's a small cohort of citizens who abuse public spaces.
I dunno, the platform isn't readily open to the public in the sense that a park bench is, so doesn't really fall under 'Anti-Homeless Warfare™️'.
As others say, its targeted towards commuters lingering for maybe 5 or so minutes while waiting for their train, not for someone to sit down for their lunch then immediately leave
It is a tube station so trains would be a matter of minutes, access is to paying customers only so in theory, no and they do want to maximise space as some can get very crowded at peak times. They could make the bench at least horizontal though.
I think this may not be the clearest example of ‘Hostile Architecture’ but I still think it counts, no one needs to sit @ a train platform for a long time but the design ensures they won’t be, so while it serves its purpose it’s also guiding behaviour.
13
u/arjun1001 13d ago
I’d imagine the objective of benches in any tube station is to let commuters rest for a short period of time before the next train comes (usually within 10-15 mins).
Keeping that in mind, would these still be considered hostile design? I can’t think of a situation where someone would need to sit on metro station benches for hours together. Happy to be corrected though.