Design with Intent

Review: Architecture as Crime Control by Neal Katyal

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 18, 2007 ⋅ 5 comments

Review: Katyal, N. K. “Architecture as Crime Control”, Yale Law Journal, March 2002, Vol 111, Issue 5.
Professor Neal Kumar Katyal of Georgetown University Law School, best-known for being (successful) lead counsel in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case dealing with Guantanamo Bay detainees, has also done some important work on the use of design as a [...]

Design & Punishment

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 26, 2007 ⋅ 8 comments

Design and Punishment, by Ben Cunningham. Photo from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth’s 2007 Three Dimensional Design graduate directory.
Very neatly linking the themes of the last two posts (devices to make users aware of their energy use, and intentionally uncomfortable seating) is the Design and Punishment chair by Ben Cunningham, a Three Dimensional Design graduate [...]

Friday quote: Super-Cannes by J G Ballard

By Dan Lockton ⋅ January 26, 2007 ⋅ 3 comments

J G Ballard, Super-Cannes, chapter 29:
Thousands of people live and work here without making a single decision about right and wrong. The moral order is engineered into their lives along with the speed limits and the security systems.
Re-reading Ballard’s excellent Super-Cannes, since the way the winter afternoon sunlight suddenly caught a building a few days [...]

A vein attempt?

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 28, 2006 ⋅ 7 comments

Blue lighting is sometimes used in public toilets (restrooms) to make it more difficult for drug users to inject themselves (veins are harder to see). The above implementation is in Edinburgh, next to the Tron Kirk.
It was more difficult to see my veins through my skin, but there was normal-coloured lighting in the street [...]

Bruce Schneier : Architecture & Security

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 20, 2006 ⋅ 19 comments

Bruce Schneier talks about ‘Architecture and Security’: architectural decisions based on the immediate fear of certain threats (e.g. car bombs, rioters) continuing to affect users of the buildings long afterwards. And he makes the connexion to architectures of control outside of the built environment, too:
“The same thing can be seen in cyberspace as well. In [...]

BBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 17, 2006 ⋅ 5 comments

From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’:
“Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas.
But while the use of surveillance drones is among them, they would be a “long way off”, police said.
…
“The idea of the drone is a long way off, but it is about exploring [...]

Reversing the emphasis of a control environment

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 17, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Image from Monkeys & Kiwis (Flickr)
Chris Weightman let me know about how it felt to watch last Thursday’s iPod Flashmob at London’s Liverpool Street station: the dominant sense was of a mass of people overturning the ‘prescribed’ behaviour designed into an environment, and turning the area into their own canvas, overlaying individualised, externally silent experiences [...]

Casino programmable*

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 5, 2006 ⋅ 2 comments

Signal vs Noise talks about the casino experience – a world awash with designed-in architectures of control, both physical and psychological (and physiological, perhaps), truly environments designed specifically to manipulate and reinforce certain behaviour, from maze-like layouts (intentional route obfuscation – perhaps even more so than in supermarkets) to the deliberate funnelling of winners past [...]

‘Anti-Homeless’ benches in Tokyo

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 5, 2006 ⋅ 13 comments

Images from Yumiko Hayakawa
Yumiko Hayakawa has a very thoughtful and well-illustrated article at OhMyNews on the story behind the variety of ‘anti-homeless’ benches and architectural features (including public art) in Tokyo’s parks and public areas – by making it difficult or impossible to lie down. (We’ve looked briefly before at benches with central armrests before, [...]

‘Secret alarm becomes dance track’

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 28, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The Mosquito sound has been mixed (sort of) into a dance track:
“…the sound is being used in a dance track, Buzzin’, with secret melodies only young ears can hear.
…
Simon Morris from Compound Security said: “Following the success of the ringtone, a lot of people were asking us to do a bit more, so we [...]

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