Sending the message without posting a sign.
“When Selena Savic walks down a city street, she sees it differently to most people. Whereas other designers might admire the architecture, Savic sees a host of hidden tricks intended to manipulate our behaviour and choices without us realising – from benches that are deliberately uncomfortable to sculptures that keep certain citizens away.
“Modern cities are rife with these ‘unpleasant designs’, says Savic, a PhD student at the Ecole Polytechnique Federerale de Lausanne in Switzerland, who co-authored a book on the subject this year. Once you know these secret tricks are there, it will transform how you see your surroundings. ‘We call this a silent agent,’ says Savic. ‘These designs are hidden, or not apparent to people they don’t target.’ Are you aware of how your city is manipulating you?”
Secret city design tricks manipulate your behaviour : Frank Swain, 2 December 2013, BBC Future
Pics at link; if you have the time I’d also re-recommend the following video:
William H. Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces – The Street Corner from MASNYC [The Municipal Art Society of New York] on Vimeo.
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces was also (or perhaps I should say, was primarily) a book in 1980, ISBN 9780970632418, available used these days; though now also available in a new edition from PPS, The Project for Public Spaces.
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The BBC article references Selena Savic’s book as well, Unpleasant Design, which she also currently expands upon with a blog of the same name.
