Hostile architecture, Aporophobia and the City of Exclusivity

Hostile architecture refers to the design or modification of elements in public and semi-private places to discourage or exclude certain behaviours and homeless people. It can create barriers for walkability, promoting cities of exclusivity. It involves the implementation of physical elements that intentionally make a place uncomfortable, inconvenient, or impossible to use for activities, e.g., sleeping, sitting, or loitering. Hostile architecture is related to Aporophobia. Aporophobia is the discrimination against the poor. This research aims to identify and classify different levels of hostile architecture in Brazil, where 243 thousand people are homeless. The case study is the city. We applied a walking workshop with a group of 35 people, two disabled people, three representatives of a low-income community movement, and three journalists of a local newspaper. We combined the walking workshop with My Map application to geographically identify hostile physical elements in the city. Photos and videos were taken, and informal conversations were recorded during the walk to capture people’s perception about hostile architecture. It happened on 09/03/2023 and took 2 hours and was promoted by the I Seminar of Citizenship Rights in Pelotas. The results identified three types of hostile architecture: Type 1 refers to physical elements that can hurt or even cause death, Type 2 is related to everything that can obstruct walkability and accessibility, and avoid long term people’s permanence, and Type 3 refers to physical insertions that can difficult people’s mobility, accessibility, and permanence but will not prevent these. This classification is unprecedented and can support the development of public policies to promote inclusive cities. As a first step, the Brazilian federal government published on 11/12/2023 a regulation that prohibits hostile architecture in public spaces. We hope to inspire academics, stakeholders, and policymakers in the battle against cities of exclusivity. The city should be for all.