One Year Into Brazil’s ‘Hostile Architecture’ Ban

It’s been one year since Brazil passed a law banning “hostile architecture,” infrastructure designed to prevent people from sitting or lying in public spaces. Hostile architecture is widely used around the world to limit access for people deemed ‘undesirable,’ explains Raphael Tsavkko Garcia explains in Next City.

The decree stipulates measures to curb the use of hostile materials, structures, equipment and construction techniques in open spaces for public use. It also requires urban planning tools and policies, such as zoning regulations and building codes, to help prevent the use of hostile architectural elements.

However, some cities have been slow to implement the law, and experts say hostile architecture or “defensive design” is part of a broader social problem. “Architects Elenara Stein Leitão, Oscar Muller and Vinicius Gonçalves tell Next City that hostile architecture is just one facet of ‘a society that focuses on security, often the fruit of social exclusion, in which it would be possible to differentiate into two strands: the security of those who own property and the expulsion of the undesirables.’”