Exclusionary Design - social exclusion in urban spaces

The project investigates ‘Exclusionary Design’ which is the social exclusion taking place via a combination of design and law in the public urban spaces in Denmark. Exclusionary Design (e.g. leaning benches or iron spikes) serves the purpose of rejecting socially vulnerable and homeless people. These groups are furthermore being criminalized via the law against begging and camping in public spaces. Hence, design and law ‘cooperates’ in forcing homeless people out of the public spaces in the city. This is a central societal issue, since sustainable cities are measured by their ability to embrace diversity (the ‘DNA’ of cities). The project raises the following questions that will be answered through its progress: How is social exclusion created via design of urban spaces and artefacts? How widespread is the social exclusion and criminalization? How does it feel to be subject to Exclusionary Design and criminalization? The project reaches across sociology, architecture, urban design, anthropology, law and mobilities studies. It creates an overview over the extension of Exclusionary Design in Denmark, as well as it document how it feels to be subject to Exclusionary Design. The project utilizes methods such as co-creation, dialogue workshops, and experiments with installations in order to make the problem visible for a wider public to whom this problem is often invisible. The process results in a number of tools enabling dialogue between homeless people, NGOs, municipalities, property owners and authorities.