
Unpleasant Design - sndean
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design-hostile-urban-architecture/
======
scrollaway
One of the most important paragraphs:

> _Most of these goals seem noble, but the overall effect is somewhat
> demoralizing, and follows a potentially dangerous logic with respect to
> designing for public spaces. When design solutions address the symptoms of a
> problem (like sleeping outside in public) rather than the cause of the
> problem (like the myriad societal shortcomings that lead to homelessness),
> that problem is simply pushed down the street._

Can't agree more. It's so common in France and really depressing. On the
linked video (which looks to be shot in Paris, actually), we see dozens of
these contraptions right in front of metro ads which cost most than it does to
feed and shelter homeless people for several weeks.

~~~
tmptmp
>like the myriad societal shortcomings that lead to homelessness

I think the author has oversimplified many important things related to the
problem of homelessness. I want to point of some other aspects of this
problem.

Let me explain.

How the homelessness of all the homeless people can be blamed on the societal
shortcomings? What about the homeless person's shortcomings?

Blaming everything on society and ignoring the personal shortcomings may gain
political advantage but it sets very bad precedences and spoils the entire
societal fabric. (The Marxists/socialists always use this as a tactic to sway
public mood and that is more harmful for the free and humane society.)

e.g. I may be homeless because I sold my house and spent all the money on
drugs or in the casinos or on watching movies or on prostitutes or on the
internet or on something else to derive various types of carnal/non-carnal
pleasures. In this way, not only I became homeless but I made my entire family
of 4 children and a wife homeless.

This is just one example. The other major reason is immigration of huge number
of people who are unskilled and/or are unwilling to work and migrate to cities
which are more popular and hence are more costly and thus find themselves
homeless.

How exactly can such homelessness be blamed on the society? In the first
example, the person, who enjoyed the freedom of choice, must face the
consequences of his/her actions.

In the other case: it is EU leaders' foolish (almost suicidal) decision to
allow unchecked immigration to flood the European cities and make the life of
the people already living there a hell. One of the very important reasons for
Brexit is related to immigration, especially the immigration of people
unwilling to integrate: i.e. people from Islamic countries.

I don't deny that there are some people (especially children) who are homeless
not because of their own but because of someone else's actions. Let's agree,
for the sake of argument, that a more humane society must take responsibility
of such homeless people.

But even then, even if the homelessness of such people is partly due to some
societal shortcomings, why the rest of people should suffer to provide space
(e.g. public benches) for the homeless ones to sleep on?

~~~
icebraining
Are you really using the outcomes of a decision by elected officials as a
counter-example to the theory of homelessness as societal shortcomings?

~~~
tmptmp
I guess you caught me here logically. Thanks for it.

But I guess with the adoption of the policy of taking such decisions by public
referendums is a good way to counter this shortcoming.

------
wingerlang
> The Camden Bench is virtually impossible to sleep on. It is anti-dealer and
> anti-litter because it features no slots or crevices in which to stash drugs
> or into which trash could slip. It is anti-theft because the recesses near
> the ground allow people to store bags behind their legs and away from would
> be criminals. It is anti-skateboard because the edges on the bench fluctuate
> in height to make grinding difficult. It is anti-graffiti because it has a
> special coating to repel paint.

It's a bench for sitting on, I don't understand how anyone gave this a second
thought.

And are they treating the anti-skate/anti-graffiti as negatives? Why would the
city not want to protect their property and make keep the tear to a minimum.

~~~
pimlottc
Consider it this way. The Camden Bench has a clear dictum - thou shalt only
sit. It's pretty clear that this object has been placed by a rigid authority
with strong opinions on the right and wrong way to use their bench.

A "standard" bench is more neutral - here is a bench. Do with it what you
like. The user is invited to exercise their own preferences in how to use it.
It acknowledges that the user may have their own valid ideas about how to use
it. Consequently, the user feels more respected.

It's like using a locked-down phone vs one where the user is free to install
their own firmware. The former may be adequate for many and more
straightforward to use, but it may not serve all users and many would bristle
just at the suggestion that they are being limited in what they can do.

~~~
cturner
"It's pretty clear that this object has been placed by a rigid authority with
strong opinions on the right and wrong way to use their bench."

Should benches even be fixed in place? That is an expression of authority
also. What if we were to built it out of modular components, and place it,
without it being bolted in place? There would be problems from doing this. Are
some of the same problems true of the multi-use bench you describe?

There are problems with your analogy to phones. Phones are private property.
The benches in this thread are public property. We could quibble about what
those terms mean, but it's clear that they are affected by different
priorities and dynamics.

~~~
pimlottc
It's a rough analogy, I admit. But the meaning of "public" vs "private",
that's one of the central issues here. What rights does a random person have
over an object in the public space? They don't own it, but somehow they should
have some say. Maybe that's a bad question; this is not just about legal
rights. Does the object suggest a sense of partnership, of shared ownership,
of community? If I feel engaged in my city, I'll respect it, I'll take care of
it, I'll help it develop. If not, I won't bother. Maybe it'll get littered,
broken, tagged. Design plays a role here in forming that impression.

~~~
cturner
I'm interested in this idea: can we imagine a world where people are so
engaged that individuals just take care of problems like graffiti without
there needing to be a council for it. What would it take to produce that
spirit between people?

For there to be a bench, and for its use to not be defined, and for people to
use it as it is marked.

> If not, I won't bother

Often there are communities who feel differently. The people who are invested
in the community will maintain it. Outsiders will respect it less. Some will
take it for granted, others will actively undermine it for the lulz. These
groups live alongside one another, and share resources, but they are
socialised differently.

Sometimes, though, things stick. In Australia, people leave their things on
the beach when they go swimming. Messing with people's stuff seems to be a
universal taboo. There'll be weird individuals who break it, but no
subculture.

------
fatdog
Why do people sleep on benches instead of shelters? When you look at a typical
homeless person nest, it is arranged to protect them from theft and violence.
It's either in a well populated place, usually with middle class people who
will report violence, or where they can hear people coming, has good
visibility, a corner for their back, etc.

When you look at a typical homeless shelter, it has bunks or cots, no
security, people with no reason to report violence, and it's full of desperate
homeless people with addictions and erratic mental illness. They don't want to
be around each other because they know it's dangerous. Why would you go to a
shelter unless you were looking for trouble? It's full of predators.

Charitable organizations don't give homeless people privacy for fear of the
human things they will do, like drink, use drugs, have sex, etc. The street or
a park provides relative privacy and freedom, within walking distance of
services.

Given most homeless people are men, the solutions are more likely to involve
providing basic physical privacy and security than comfort or sympathy.

~~~
coolsunglasses
>Why do people sleep on benches instead of shelters?

When I was homeless in NYC, I followed the advice of a local and called 311 to
see if I could get a bed. In order to use the shelter's facilities I had to
check myself into drug rehab. I also wasn't allowed to work a job if I was
sleeping at the shelter. I was neither drug addicted nor willing to give up
the full-time temp work I had taken up to survive. This was the only option
offered me by the person over the phone. I asked if there were other options,
she said no.

I figured there might be private (religious?) charities but I figured I needed
it less than most being a white young male. Instead, I slept on the street
(about a week?) until a reddit user let me crash at their place until I got on
my feet.

That's why I slept on an uncomfortable park bench in Brooklyn rather than in a
shelter. NYPD left me alone anyway. I would talk to them when I woke, around 5
or 6 am.

I miss how well-rested I was then. I still remember how it felt.

~~~
st3v3r
"I figured there might be private (religious?) charities but I figured I
needed it less than most being a white young male."

I honestly don't get this mindset. You're already homeless. Those
private/religious charities exist for exactly the purpose of helping you out.

~~~
coolsunglasses
I wasn't in any physical danger. Some people on the street have exes and other
sorts to fear. I also knew I could seek shelter from private strangers with
relatively little fear because I was male.

Part of the reason shelters are the way they are is because they are
desperately limited in terms of beds they can offer. The hassle is a way to
keep demand down.

I wasn't going to contribute to the problem.

------
panic
This isn't necessarily bad, and there are plenty of innocuous unpleasant
designs: doors with locks, fences, car alarms, even those faucets in airport
bathrooms you have to keep pushing to keep them from turning off. Sometimes
you need to make something less friendly in order to prevent certain unwanted
uses.

The important thing to remember is that you aren't fooling anyone. It's quite
clear what your unpleasant design is designed to prevent, and the design
itself serves as a constant reminder of the problem it was designed to solve.
Locks remind you of burglary, airport bathroom faucets remind you that people
often leave the water running, and spiky windowsills remind you of
homelessness almost as much as actual homeless people do. This may not be the
kind of feeling you want to build into your city!

~~~
chjohasbrouck
> This isn't necessarily bad, and there are plenty of innocuous unpleasant
> designs: doors with locks, fences, car alarms, even those faucets in airport
> bathrooms you have to keep pushing to keep them from turning off. Sometimes
> you need to make something less friendly in order to prevent certain
> unwanted uses.

I think the key difference here is that these things prevent burglary,
trespassing, grand theft, and thousands of gallons of wasted water. The Camden
bench just makes it so you don't have to see a homeless person. There's
something distinctly dehumanizing about that, moreso than door locks.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The difference between locks/fences/car alarms and those benches is literally
the difference between criminals and homeless people. All those designs are
purposeful attempts at deterring a particular social group. The question to
ask is when it's right to act this way.

~~~
kgwgk
Do you think is right to prevent homeless people from sleeping in your car or
your home?

~~~
TeMPOraL
It is. But we're talking about preventing homeless from using public space to
live.

~~~
kgwgk
I think we agree in that case that the difference with locks on doors is not
literally the difference between criminals and homeless people.

------
geon
Something I didn't see mentioned in the article are aluminum benches. They act
as a giant heatsink and makes your butt ice cold if you sit too long.

They have them at the Copenhagen airport.

~~~
dpark
I'm not sure that's "unpleasant design" so much as outright bad design.
Aluminum is cheap and easy to extrude into rectangular tubes suitable for use
as bench slats. Unfortunately aluminum is a pretty terrible material for this
use. It's freezing cold in the winter, as you noted. It can also be hot enough
to burn in the summer sun. And it's hard. And it's ugly (when used this way).
I don't think any of this is intended to deter people from sleeping on it.
It's just a cheap way to install a bench.

------
gabemart
I see two main claims in the article:

* "Unpleasant design" is different because it aims to exert social control in public spaces

* "Unpleasant design" is different because it is intended to create a hostile atmosphere - it increases unpleasantness rather than pleasantness

I don't really agree with either claim.

All design of public spaces is intended to exert some form of social control.
Creating a manicured park with flower beds, comfortable benches and beautiful
splashing fountains is intended to exert social control by encouraging people
to congregate and spend time in the park. In fact, any good designer attempts
to exert control by encouraging certain behaviour patterns over other
behaviour patterns.

"Unpleasant design" is not intended to increase unpleasantness. Some groups
perceive people sleeping on benches or congregating ("loitering") as
unpleasant, just as other groups find preventing people from sleeping on
benches or congregating to be unpleasant.

I'm not defending the particular examples of design referenced in the article.
I'm not saying it's a great idea to make benches you can't lie down on. But I
don't agree it makes sense as a distinct category of design. It's just design
that tends to favour groups higher in the socio-economic hierarchy at the
expense of groups lower in the socio-economic hierarchy. This may be a very
bad thing, but I don't think it's a different type of design.

~~~
cam_l
"I don't think it's a different type of design."

For some reason whenever I see articles like this on design, I think of
conway's law. See, broadly, design is a process of questioning and
understanding. This process is limited by and maybe starts to metaphorically
resemble the structure of the organisation which produces it.

This is for some reason much more apparent where there is a social/political
aspect to the design, rather than being purely commercial. Maybe a better
design for a toilet to prevent injecting.. is a safe injecting room. ie. The
problem as identified by the client is not 'people shooting up unsafely', the
problem is 'our voters don't like these people hanging around'. The blue light
somehow exposes the cold blooded rationalism of a council wishing to satisfy
its benefactors at the expense of its inhabitants.In fact, it is just as
important that it also _illustrates_ this point, as it is as much about
symbolism as utility.

So I guess while I agree with you, I still think it is worth drawing attention
to the unpleasant designs for unpleasant clients..

~~~
PeterisP
But that _is_ the whole point - the "society" intentionally wants to exclude
certain activities and people, and thus makes systems, laws and also physical
items and environment to make that desire happen.

Blue light in e.g. macdonalds bathrooms is not actually intended to influence
how people inject their drugs, it's intended to make so that the people who
want to inject their drugs don't come there, to exclude them from their
community. A safe injecting room would not solve _that_ , I'd rather argue
that the blue lights are a cheaper solution doing the same job as e.g. face
control and bouncers throwing people out from some other types of
estabilishments.

------
vog
This works also towards animals.

For example, on top of the information displays at outdoor stations, there are
spikes, as seen on this picture:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/IMG_6146...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/IMG_6146_Hamburg_Hbf.JPG)

These prevent birds from sitting on these displays, which keeps the displays
clean and prevents passengers waiting below that display from unpleasant
surprises.

~~~
rangibaby
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse#Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse#Design)

Queues at Disneyland etc. follow these principles too, to stop you from
getting stressed by a long wait.

------
Anthony-G
The “leaning benches” remind me of the _mercy seats_ found in late medieval
churches. Old or infirm monks and other clergy could use them for support
during long prayers for which standing was obligatory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericord](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericord)

------
timlyo
I hate those high pitched buzzers for teenagers. I'm in my 20s and can still
hear them.

~~~
guard-of-terra
To me, "buzzers for teenagers" is an extremelly unsettling slash dehumanizing
idea. I thought it's a proof of concept, I can't imagine how anybody will
actually install one of these.

It's totally like installing a bump in your door frame so any people with
disability will have difficulty passing. We're not wanting any limp lamers to
destroy our healthy mood inside, do we?

One day people who embraced this kind of thing will be old and helpless, and
"teenagers" will held all posts. Just sayin'.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> I can't imagine how anybody will actually install one of these. //

You run a shop, a convenience store. Until recently you were making a living
for you and your family but a group of teenagers have taken to hanging out
outside your store. They do petty criminal damage, graffiti, break the bins,
that kinda thing. What's more troubling is that they verbally abuse your
clientelle and provide a hostile environment. Your clients stop coming because
they're intimidated, rightly or wrongly, by this crowd of teenagers: they
don't want to be asked to buy alcohol, and jeered at if they refuse, just to
get a pint of milk and some bread or get their morning papers.

You call the police, who send someone a few hours after the teenagers have
left, or on occasions clear them away; but they just come back.

Installing a "Mosquito" high-pitch noise generator means that the teenagers
will be put off congregating here, they'll meet perhaps at the park over the
road, or go to the skate park, or meet at each other's houses, or ... the harm
they'll suffer is extremely limited. The benefit is now that the community can
again use the store in a relaxed way, you can now make a living again. The
teenagers end up playing football or skating or something, not intimidating
people trying to use a convenience store at least.

Some people perhaps complain about the noise, but once inside it doesn't
affect them, it's a minor inconvenience as they enter the store.

Can you really not see the benefit nor imagine someone using such a device?

~~~
guard-of-terra
> Installing a "Mosquito" high-pitch noise generator means that the teenagers
> will be put off congregating here

So here you're installing a mosquito device _outside_ of your venue? A device
that produces constant noize pollution in a common street? I can surely see
how somebody should complain to police, and they surely should confiscate that
device and write you a fine. It's strange if that would not happen.

Also:

> ...a group of teenagers have taken to hanging out outside your store...

There's some kind of weird narrative here, because I've never heard things
like this happening where I live. Not once.

> The teenagers end up playing football or skating or something, not
> intimidating people

Why won't they do that in a first place? If they also enjoy destroying bins
and drawing gravity they can surely do that in ten minutes or so, doing all
the damage and avoiding too much nuisance from your device? I can't imagine
teenagers hanging in one place all the time, won't that be extremelly boring?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It happens where I live, a poorer city in the UK. Sometimes it's a very
similar thing outside people's houses.

Have you ever been asked to buy alcohol by underage kids as you approach a
shop? If not then you probably don't live in an area where things like this
happen (or alcohol laws in you country are more liberal).

~~~
PepeGomez
I think you don't realize how loud these things are. The whole street becomes
painful to walk on.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Why don't you complain to authorities?

~~~
PepeGomez
It's apparently legal to use.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Then somebody should totally install such a device near the shop owner's home.
Encompass perhaps.

------
habosa
I really hate all of the effort taken to prevent people from sleeping (or
generally relaxing) on the street in San Francisco. I have on many occasions
picked up a sandwich and then walked a mile without finding a good place to
sit and eat it. All because we're worried some homeless person might be too
comfortable.

The problem is not that homeless people want to sleep on benches, the problem
is that we've failed so badly at taking care of each other that people have
nowhere else to sleep.

------
aaron695
> Concrete or metal spikes are used to keep people from urinating in dark city
> corners

[https://ablersite.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/anti_urination...](https://ablersite.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/anti_urination_utrecht_01.jpg)

[http://www.slab-mag.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/Sorbonne....](http://www.slab-mag.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/Sorbonne.JPG)

[http://unpleasant.pravi.me/wp-
content/uploads/2011/10/anti-w...](http://unpleasant.pravi.me/wp-
content/uploads/2011/10/anti-wewe-02.jpg)

?
[http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/jgk/DSCN5768ant.jpg](http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/jgk/DSCN5768ant.jpg)

~~~
chriswarbo
I didn't realise spikes, etc. were used for this; I would imagine this just
"shifts the problem" a few centimetres, requiring spikes to stop people
urinating on the spikes.

I think the "splash-back" approach to stop urination is a much more
interesting topic, compared to unimaginative spikes.

------
swah
A friend had a shoe store downtown and one of the most unpleasants things
about it was that every night someone would piss in the front gate/door. How
do you deter that?

He closed the business (not only for that reason, of course) and has a store
in the mall now.

~~~
chriswarbo
Install a urinal nearby?

~~~
viraptor
This is what the city can do. What can you do as a shop owner?

~~~
swah
Electrifying the metal doors comes to mind, but its illegal, evil, and
probably disproportionate to the damage done by the drunkard.

------
pmontra
I always wondered if this is hostile architecture or just plain stupid

[http://i.imgur.com/FUuFPgK.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/FUuFPgK.jpg)

See how the lady walks on the right? Bicycles stay on the two rails on the
left and often pedestrians too. All the space in the middle is nobody's land.
It's rounded pebbles in a concrete pavement.

------
feintruled
You see this a lot of airports. One particularly egregious example is
EasyJet's 'boarding lounge' (which you are funneled into long before a plane
even arrives), which has a few leaning benches but is otherwise standing room
only. This isn't for any public good - it is meant to push you into paying for
'speedy boarding', which gets you access to a roped off area with proper
seats.

------
skybrian
It seems like this is the real world equivalent of the design that has to go
into social software.

It's a universal rule of the public Internet that spam and abuse make
everything suck. Therefore it's not enough that your design encourages good
usage. It also has to discourage bad usage.

------
Overtonwindow
Generally I avoid the homeless. I don't give them money and I frown on their
activities. However, they are humans, and they deserve to be treated with
respect. It warmed my hearts when the anarchists in London used cement to
cover up the spikes at a Tesco. I'm not advocating destruction of property, or
the breakage of any laws, but I do think we all need to change our views on
the homeless. They're people. Treat them with respect, even if you disagree
with their way of life.

------
ipsin
I'm convinced that someone(s) in Santa Monica, CA's urban planning divsion has
been practicing unpleasant design ruthlessly.

The first pass replaced normal bus bench seating with low blue toadstools.
Once they figured out that they're terrible for people with any kind of knee
problem or more serious disability, they added a pair of poles to the sides.
Useless, uncomfortable seats, but by God, no homeless people (or regular
people) can enjo y their use.

More recently, at a rail station they added a wavy pattern to the
sidewalks[1]. I heard second-hand that the texture causes disorientation and
nausea, and then I experienced it myself. Now I'm convinced that it's to keep
bicyclists off the sidewalk, because it makes anyone sick to look at it, but
bicyclists are slightly faster and usually _have_ to look where they're going
more carefully than pedestrians.

[1] [http://ronslog.typepad.com/ronslog/2016/06/santa-monica-
phot...](http://ronslog.typepad.com/ronslog/2016/06/santa-monica-photos.html)
, particularly the sixth photo. Not mine, but the best shots I've seen of it.

~~~
fencepost
Good lord that sidewalk is horrible when looked at from eye height. Does it
give the same impression of lumpy/wavy when you're crossing it rather than
walking along it?

~~~
ipsin
It's mostly oriented so that you can only walk along it -- that is, it's
bounded by the road and a barrier, so that you can only really experience it
one way.

It is pretty miserable.

------
Animats
Then there's the Columbia, SC final solution to the homeless problem.[1][2]
Their concentration camp plan didn't work out, though.

[1] [http://www.columbiasc.net/depts/city-
council/docs/old_downlo...](http://www.columbiasc.net/depts/city-
council/docs/old_downloads/08_13_2013_Agenda_Items/Emergency_Homeless_Response_13_August_2013.pdf)
[2] [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/28/south-carolina-
ca...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/28/south-carolina-capital-city-
forces-its-homeless-out.html)

------
smonff
There is some artist working on this in a critical way that could have been
quoted in the post:

\- [http://www.the-wabsite.com/works/relaxation-
situationnelle](http://www.the-wabsite.com/works/relaxation-situationnelle)

\- [http://www.the-wabsite.com/works/paris-a-place-to-stay](http://www.the-
wabsite.com/works/paris-a-place-to-stay)

\- [http://www.the-wabsite.com/works/skate-anti-skate](http://www.the-
wabsite.com/works/skate-anti-skate)

------
frik
There is an old classic book about the topic about NYC from a famous
researcher. Everyone should read that book. (I don't recall the details, but I
have it in my bookshelf at home)

~~~
minikomi
Are you thinking of "the life and death of great american cities" ? I'm
reading it now.. very interesting book and still relevant.

~~~
dredmorbius
Jane Jacobs, for those unfamiliar with the author. A true gem.

------
ctack
I would love to see fewer street lights. Especially in village / suburban
settings. But the word is that they reduce crime. Are there any studies to
this effect?

~~~
icebraining
Some studies:

[http://www.popcenter.org/library/crimeprevention/volume_10/0...](http://www.popcenter.org/library/crimeprevention/volume_10/03-PeaseLighting.pdf)

[http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/07/08/jech-2015-20601...](http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/07/08/jech-2015-206012.short?g=w_jech_ahead_tab)

~~~
verisimilitude
Sorry, I meant to upvote you but got the wrong arrow. Anyway, I once read a
nice article about light pollution that made this point: light to reduce crime
is a common misconception. Criminals don't like dark places any more than we
do, and a lack of light makes their job harder, not easier. It would seem that
the primary literature continues to bear this out.

~~~
jessaustin
Yes this is why there is _no_ nighttime lighting on my farm. I know the place
well, so I have no trouble walking about and doing whatever I need. Recently a
mare and foal were delivered by semi van at the front gate (our hill is too
steep for this vehicle) at 1:30 AM. It was no trouble for me to lead these
animals the half mile to their pasture, down the hill, across several other
pastures and a creek, in the pitch-black darkness of a moonless cloudy night.
Someone unfamiliar with the property would have broken several ankles.

------
ekingr
Reminds me of a scandal with Tesco in London when they installed "anti-
homeless" spikes in front of their stores.
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/12/tesco-
spikes...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/12/tesco-spikes-
remove-regent-street-homeless-protests)

------
mentatseb
It's basically applied actor-network theory from sociology and the delegation
of control to objects
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory)

------
mobiuscog
The irony that the second edition of the book is digital only, so can't be
used for stoking fires, covering windows, making paper airplanes... etc.

Unpleasant design ?

------
paul_milovanov
aka, design.

------
fiftyacorn
the blue toilet isnt bad design - its used to stop people injecting drugs in
public toilets

~~~
mipmap04
I don't think anything in this article is designed "poorly" and I don't think
the author meant to convey that the design was bad - the designs of these
objects just have a goal of being unpleasant. If your goal is to design
something unpleasant, and you succeed, I would say that is a good design.

~~~
gog
I think you maybe just skimmed over the article. They didn't state that
something was designed "poorly".

