Video Link: https://youtu.be/A5mv5dX1Zys
Introduction
Using hostile architecture as a medium, this essay aims to discuss the relationship between the homeless and hostile designs. Meanwhile, the duality of these anti-homeless facilities is worth investigating at the same time.
Homeless people are always the neglected stakeholders in our society. Walking on the streets, there is a high chance of you ignoring the beggar begging for a living. Since they are most likely bowing down or sitting on the walkway, it is difficult to notice when you normally walk in the city, especially everyone is walking in fast pace in Hong Kong.
After realizing their daytime routine, here comes another question: Where do they sleep? Then a closely related word must be mentioned — ‘hostile architecture’. Hostile architecture is a form of social exclusion that is implemented in public and communal spaces within our cities. In other words, hostile designs are anti-homeless facilities. In Hong Kong, they appear the most under footbridges since the bridge itself is already an ideal canopy, blocking rains and providing shelters. Gardens benefit the city aesthetics and prevent people sleep there.
Ironically, these anti-homeless spaces are always where the homeless sleep. They can turn the public spaces into private sectors by interfering the site condition or adapting to the physically inhumane designs. In spite of legal issues, this writing is going to study the relationship between public and private domains through analyzing homeless’ living condition. An anticipated result can be proposed — the nature of a space is not only defined by its room planning, it is also influenced by the way users interact with it.
Methodology
Methodology
-Contrast
The main strategy used for the video is time contrast. In the video, same hostile design spots were shot in daytime and nighttime. It is an intriguing process to investigate the change in nature of the spots. In daytime, the under-bridge gardens serve as public facilities. Yet, they will switch into private domains when the homeless come back to sleep. In spite of legal issues, it is an inspiring fact that the functionality of spaces is not only defined by the facilities, it can also be influenced by user interaction.
-Characters
1.Angle and speed
Besides, the angle of video is in first-person perspective as a normal pedestrian. Collaborating with the use of video speed, the pedestrian was walking in normal pace at first. Then the clip speed drastically slows down when a homeless man appears in the bottom corner of the screen. As a citizen, we usually will not notice the homeless in our life. Yet, they appear every day in the streets. The speed contrast shows how easily they are ignored even though they are one of the usual component of Hong Kong streets.
2.Songs
Using one of the Kid Cudi’s famous songs ‘Day ‘n’ Nite’, the video portraits the homeless people as sad men. Through the lyrics such as ‘lonely loners’, ‘he’s all alone’, ‘free his mind at night’, etc. While the song says nothing about daytime, it also resembles the fact that no one cares about the homeless in daytime. The lonely homeless can finally enjoy his fleeting peace and have his own spot at night, by putting a mattress on the garden mud, uprooting the plants or simply curl up in the tiny corner. The place they sleep is public during daytime, now has become a private room in a open city space at night.
-Loop
Same clips are used at the start and at the end of the video. The reuse of crowds walking on the bridge creates a looping idea. To echo the song ‘Day ‘n’ Nite’, the hostile space starts as public in the day, and ends as private in the night. The repetition forms a closed circuit, there will be countless people walking on the Mong Kok footbridge. They go to work in the morning and return home at night. However, what’s the loop for the always neglected homeless? They wake up early in the morning, picking up food in McDonald’s, smoked cigarettes from the bins and begging money on the streets. At night, they create their space using thin wooden boards, clothing or simply sleep in it, day by day.
-Blanking
In the video, it is intentional that there are no footage of the homeless sleeping in their place. Yet, just the empty mattresses, and tents with some other daily necessities are recorded. We can easily imagine the daily activities of theirs, but we rarely think about how their night life is. Looking at the empty space, we can depict our own imagination of their life by the stained blankets, cracked bowls and rusted bicycles.
Bibliography
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