From ASBO to Injunction - The Camden Bench As a Symbol of the UK’s Legacy of Intolerance

Caragh Murphy-Collinson

As Britain, along with the majority of Western ‘developed’ countries, gradually abandons the values and functions of the Welfare State, its response to general disorder is also shifting to one based on individual rather than structural unrest (Petty 2016). In this climate, ‘Otherness’ (Kramer & Lee 1999) is understood as a personal fault rather than the result of factors beyond one's control such as education, poverty, and opportunity. As London grows, a covert war is being waged against the ‘Other’, not merely with targeted laws and social policies, but within the cities’ very fabric (Figures 1 & 2). New shoots of cold, stiff iron and hard concrete are bursting with decreasing subtlety at peculiar angles from the cities once-familiar, once-inviting surfaces, as every square and street corner is designed or modified in alignment with initiatives to curb what the state refer to as “anti-social behaviour” (ASB) (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003). This essay explores the ways in which these neo-liberal ideologies are imposed via hostile and defensive architecture in London and examines the extent to which these trends are ‘embodied’ by one specific piece of furniture: The Camden Bench. 

As Britain, along with the majority of Western ‘developed’ countries, gradually abandons the values and functions of the Welfare State, its response to general disorder is also shifting to one based on individual rather than structural unrest (Petty 2016). In this climate, ‘Otherness’ (Kramer & Lee 1999) is understood as a personal fault rather than the result of factors beyond one’s control such as education, poverty, and opportunity. In neo-liberal Britain, the capitalist system as it stands, is devoid of agency: Success or failure is in your hands alone. If you lose your job during an economic crisis, it’s not because of the recession, it’s because you’re not good enough. For Young (1999: 176), the “exclusive” city of London is a trademark of western late-modernity. States shift from absorbing (“anthropophagic”) (Young 1999: 56) to emitting (“anthropoemic”) (Young 1999: 60) strategies of social and state response to deviancy and difference. This is what Petty refers to as “The punitive turn” (Petty 2016: 70). Building on the works of Garland (1985, 2001), the punitive turn sees “movement away from the traditional laying down of laws towards an increasing… mobilisation of norms” (Garland 1985: 235). For Michel Foucault, the internalisation of these neo-liberal norms transforms people into self-policing “docile bodies” (Foucault 1977: 135), an ideal public who are useful to the state. They work, pay tax, and reproduce, but also surveil themselves and others around them, looking down on those who, for whatever reason, diverge (Foucault 1977).  As London grows, a covert war is being waged against the ‘Other’, not merely with targeted laws and social policies, but within the cities’ very fabric (Figures 1 & 2). New shoots of cold, stiff iron and hard concrete are bursting with decreasing subtlety at peculiar angles from the cities once-familiar, once-inviting surfaces, as every square and street corner is designed or modified in alignment with initiatives to curb what the state refer to as “anti-social behaviour” (ASB) (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003).  

This essay will critically explore the role of the built environment in defining and controlling London’s divergent population(s), examining current anthropological theory in so called hostile/defensive architecture through an intimate study of the Camden Bench. Arguably the quintessential symbol of austerity Britain, the bench was commissioned by Camden Borough Council as a piece of street furniture that would actively repel ASB (Factory Furniture 2010). As a result, it has been widely described by architects and journalists as an “anti-object” (Swain 2013, Futility Closet 2018). Utilising the aforementioned theoretical frames, I will investigate its status as an anti-object through an anthropological lens, by examining its materiality, aesthetics, and role within wider state-sponsored hostile architectural movements seeking to re-design London as an increasingly inaccessible city. 

Divergent Populations: Anti-Social Behaviour

If you grew up in London in the late 90s/early 2000s, the chances are you’re well acquainted with the concept of an ASBO (Anti-Social Behavioural Order). Introduced by Tony Blair in 1998 (Koch 2018:150), ASBOs were an attempt to tackle ASB within the civil, rather than criminal justice system. Associated in 00s popular culture such as Little Britain (figure 3) with CHAV (Council House And Violent) stereotypes, ASBOs were a cheap and easy way to marginalise young people who grew up on estates, many of whom were the children of immigrants, whilst also victimising the unemployed and homeless.

In 1998, ASB included ‘paedophilic activity’, arson, dangerous driving and rioting as well as much lesser crimes like street drinking, graffiti, night-time-noise, and loitering, all under one umbrella (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003). Orders usually entailed a ban on entering certain establishments and/or contacting certain people, and any violation of these conditions would usually result in a fine or a prison sentence (Koch 2018). Anyone over 10 years old could get an ASBO, and they were handed out for as little as playing football in the street (Select Committee on Home Affairs 2005). Although touted by government officials as a means to avoid criminal charges, many young people across the UK ended up in prison for violating the conditions of their ASBO, even though their original offence was un-imprisonable (Koch 2018).

Having, or living with somebody who had an Order often resulted in social, as well as criminal consequences: Eviction from council property, cancellation of benefit payments, and termination from employment (Koch 2018, Garland 2001). In 2014 they were replaced by Theresa May’s equally controversial and even more vague “Injunctions against nuisance and annoyance” (Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014). According to the London Assembly, 85% of all ASB complaints pertaining to the new injunctions in 2017 were recorded as “nuisance anti-social behaviour” (The London Assembly 2018), the majority of which reported “young people hanging around” and/or “making noise” (The London Assembly 2018). The London Metropolitan Police define ASB as “behaviour by a person which causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress” (Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014), including “begging and vagrancy” (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014). For homeless people therefore, their very existence is considered anti-social to the point of illegality. ASBOs and injunctions have thus been received by many as a means to criminalise certain identities, which in most cases, are the homeless, and young, poor, people of colour.

Death by Design: The Context of Covid-19

According to Ocean Howell, “When you’re designed against, you know about it” (Chadalavada 2020: 249), especially in times of national crisis. Since June 2020, over 128,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom (Office for National Statistics 2020). In a late attempt to decelerate the death rate, multiple lockdowns were implemented, during which we were all instructed to “Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives.” (Department of Health and Social Care 2021). But what of people who didn’t have a home to stay in? Despite the UK government’s “everyone in” (Ministry of Housing, Community and Local government 2021a) initiative, offering homeless people temporary accommodation in hotels during the peak of the pandemic, The Museum of Homelessness’s (MOH) ‘Dying Homeless project’ (Museum of Homelessness 2020) revealed that there was still a staggering 976 homeless deaths in the UK in 2020, which is a 37% increase from 2019 (Museum of Homelessness 2020). While their study only directly attributes 3% of these to Covid-19, the spike in suicides, as well as drug/alcohol related deaths may also be attributed to the knock-on effects of the pandemic: Empty city centres, closed cafes, restaurants and gyms, and slower ambulance response times. These lifelines providing shelter, warmth, Wi-Fi, electricity, healthcare, and hygiene disappeared overnight as lockdown measures were implemented (Vilenica et. al. 2020). Testimonies given by ex-homeless people in London revealed that during the pandemic, many people were left unable to access showering facilities for as long as two months (West London Mission 2021). According to Jess Turtle, co-founder of the MOH, “the pandemic hit a system already cut to the bone from 10 years of austerity” (Museum of Homelessness 2020), and as a result, the infrastructure necessary to protect society’s most vulnerable was simply not in place.

The Camden Bench: Intolerance as Infrastructure

There is arguably no object more representative of the sentiments behind Austerity Britain and the ASBO than the Camden Bench, commissioned by Camden Borough Council specifically to tackle issues of ASB in London’s city centre. Produced by Factory Furniture, it was designed to be impossible for the public to repurpose (Factory Furniture 2010, Swain 2013). It directly discourages loitering and gathering, as its sloping surfaces are hard and uncomfortable, meaning one cannot even sit, let alone sleep comfortably on it, but can merely perch temporarily (Coggins 2016). It also completely lacks back-support. Its grooves mean that groups of two or more cannot easily face one another and are forced to sit awkwardly far apart and side-by-side. Its indentations allow bags to be stored behind legs to deter opportunistic thieving while the smooth, exposed surface, distinctly lacking crevices, does not enable the stashing of anything more sinister such as drugs or money (Factory Furniture 2010). They are designed to be impossible to skate on, and are coated with a chemical that repels graffiti, stickers, and posters (Factory Furniture 2010). Even in hot weather, its surface is always cold and hard, comprised of a heavy concrete aggregate that is available in several ‘effects’: White or black smooth concrete, shot peened limestone, or yellow, blue and black granite (Factory Furniture 2010). They are cheap to produce and maintain and heavy enough that anchorage to the ground is not necessary, which is touted as a political advantage by Factory Furniture who suggest that the bench should be moved away from “problem areas” (Factory Furniture 2010), leaving them without any street furniture at all.

The Camden Bench and Unproductive Bodies

Designed to repel certain activities, and thus certain identities, the Camden Bench is an example of “hostile architecture” (Petty 2016, Bader 2020, Starolis 2020). Other well-known examples of this include anti-homeless spikes, bum-proof benches, and skate-stoppers. The message behind the movement is obvious to those on the receiving end: “You are not a member of the public, at least not of the public that is welcome here” (Chadalavada 2020: 247). This “urban securitisation” (Petty 2016: 67) has succeeded in constructing public spaces according to narrow definitions of acceptability (Licht 2017). For example, the only acceptable use of the bench is as a brief perch, and as such, only certain people are welcome to utilise it: The shopper – resting their arms for a moment as they place their heavy bags in the convenient space provided, the student or employee on lunch break – taking a moment to enjoy their meal-deal in the sun, the pregnant, elderly, disabled, or injured – who may wish to pause briefly and rest their aches between A and B. The lack of comfort provided by the bench ensures that a constant flow of bodies through the city is maintained. This shows us that although accessible and ‘free’-to-be-in, the streets are not ours to do with as we like, they are simply corridors from homes, to stations, to places of work. Those who may wish to use the streets to skate-board, socialise, or live, have been designed out of the space. The message is clear: One should either be at home, at work or travelling between the two, and when you socialise, you should do so in designated areas. When people breach these unspoken rules, public access can be, and often is, swiftly revoked.

It is no coincidence that the activities which are approved by the design of the bench all contribute in some way to the economy: Working, eating, travelling, spending, and moving on. Hostile architecture pushes all unproductive bodies out of view, sanitising our financial districts and shopping centres, making sure that we are surrounded only by people who are consuming and accruing capital (Young 1999, Garland 2001, Petty 2016). Foucault refers to this as “biopower” (Foucault 1978: 140), the power of our bodies in the hands of the state, “docile” (Foucault 1977: 135) to their control as a result of internalised neo-liberal normativity. As unproductive bodies are shunned, we begin to measure our worth based on our productivity: How well we perform in tests, how much money we earn, and the material assets we acquire. We falsely correlate hard work with success, and as a result, we continue to look down upon and shun those who have less. Foucault believes that this leads to a society much like Bentham’s panoptical prison (Sprigge 2017, Foucault 1977), as we develop “carefully fabricated” (Foucault 1977: 217) identities, policing ourselves and others, and as Judith Butler puts it, “mimicking the strategy of the oppressor” (Butler 1990: 18.). This directly benefits the state, which has no need to pour resources into violent methods of control and coercion, because we deal with the ‘socially unacceptable’ of our own volition. Furthermore, designing poverty out of view ensures that the illusion of a capitalist utopia is maintained, and we remain free from guilt (Petty 2016). We close our eyes and willingly consent to the erasure of hardship.

Many who have written about the Camden Bench have argued that its major flaw lies in its inability to distinguish between the “vagrant posterior”, and “the more deserving” (Andreou 2015). They argue that by making the bench uncomfortable for those seeking to break the law, the council has unwittingly also targeted the elderly, pregnant and infirm, making the city hostile and uninviting to all human bodies. I would argue that this is not the “aha!” moment that many seem to think it is. From a Foucauldian perspective, a body that requires long rest is not a productive one, and therefore the hostility directed at them is just as intentional. The changing shape of the city is only welcoming to bodies that are too busy earning or spending to require comfort.

It is arguably the subtlety with which the Camden Bench exercises these violences that makes it so dangerous. In 2014, a photograph of sharp metal spikes spikes outside a luxury apartment complex was posted on twitter by user ‘EthicalPioneer’. The caption read “Anti-homeless studs… so much for community spirit ☹” (Petty 2016). It went viral, and was re-tweeted thousands of times, sparking a global discussion about homelessness and the supposedly ‘new’ phenomena of hostile architecture (Petty 2016). Petty argues that despite examples of hostile architecture having existed for decades before this incident, they went unnoticed due to Londoner’s “embedded and longstanding humanitarian ambivalence towards everyday images of hardship and vulnerability” (Petty 2016). According to Bauman (2002: 64), public anger toward atrocities often acts as a collective purification, temporarily disavowing guilt and complicity in the wider structural inequalities that allow said atrocities to happen. The immense public rejection of the spikes is therefore the product of a “double distaste” (Petty 2016)

·       Distaste for (visible) infrastructure that regulates and targets marginalised people.

·       Distaste for images which remind us that marginalised people exist while we thrive.

Thus, the reason that the anti-homeless spikes sparked outrage is not due to overwhelming humanitarian concern, it is because they are themselves a tacit reminder of homelessness (Petty 2016). Objects like the Camden Bench are as dangerous as they are covert, skirting the edge of acceptable violence, and reinforcing our daily societal ambivalence toward suffering.

Connotations of Concrete: The Camden Bench as a Melancholic Object

Every decision with regards to the design of the Camden Bench contribute to its’ effectiveness in social organisation, even down to the raw material itself. Many anthropologists have discussed the social importance of concrete as a material which, for many reasons, carries contextual connotations of corruption, industrialisation, and dystopia. Elinoff (2017) highlights concrete’s status as a composite substance with material relationality. Consisting of cement, sand, water, and aggregates in various ratios, it has no raw form. Concrete is a substance that relies on interaction; it is social (Elinoff 2017). In 1927, Frank-Lloyd Write referred to it as a mongrel material, as different stones lend different colours, finishes, and aesthetics. It can be whatever the architect wants and can be mixed in-situ as circumstances change (Forty 2012). Each configuration of the material has different properties, and incurs different levels of cost, resource, and power. During processes of planning and construction, social and material relations are therefore deeply entwined (Elinoff 2017, Savage & Tyson 2009). As a material, its origins are therefore directly linked with human creativity and intention, whereas in contrast, its process of decay “speaks of a bleak incapacity for absorption into the wider environment” (Harvey 2015). The prominent presence of, and role played by, concrete during industrialisation means that is has come to represent the antithesis of environmentalism, an ambassador of the Anthropocene. This contrast generates complex and juxtaposed “associations of hope and despair” (Harvey 2015).

Similar concrete despair is captured in the photography of Marc Wilson, whose series “The Last Stand” (2014) documents 87 abandoned and decaying concrete war structures throughout the UK. As is the case in many European countries, concrete was the material of choice for rapidly built defensive and offensive infrastructure during World War’s I & II, and mass-moulded megaliths still litter the country, providing a constant reminder of war, and the long-term impacts of violence (Philips 2008). They are what anthropologist Navaro-Yashin (2009), would refer to as “melancholic objects”. In her ethnography, “Affective spaces, melancholic objects: ruination and the production of anthropological knowledge” (Navaro-Yashin 2009), she draws on “spatial and material melancholia” within the context of war, through objects which absorb, reflect, and come to represent painful atrocities, wrong-doings, or social dissatisfaction. The affective agency possessed by such objects is powerful enough to alter the ways in which humans react with the environment around them. For Navaro-Yashin, this is especially the case for invaders or settlers who find themselves within “exchanged” (Navaro-Yashin 2009) environments, surrounded by unfamiliar, appropriated objects, which are melancholic by their very association with the ghosts of their original owners. For Marc Wilson, the concrete remnants of war create melancholia in a different way, through the memorious landscapes that they inhabit. We see them; grey, mossy, mass-produced, sunken and slumped into the topography, and we are forced to imagine the very real possibility of cowering behind them, cold, afraid, and unsafe. They are at once both symbols of violence and death, but also of healing, forgetting, and becoming desensitised.

In this way, the Camden Bench also possesses Navaro-Yashin’s melancholic qualities, as a foreign object within a familiar setting designed to marginalise people who have previously had a home in the city. As we increasingly abandon welfare in favour of neo-liberalism, they stand as a reminder of friendlier objects that stood in their place, and of a society that was once accepting. In some ways, from an environmental perspective, their concrete composition also evokes dystopia via its association with bulky industrial artefacts that refuse to decay (Philips 2008). Furthermore, they also evoke the aesthetics of war explored by Wilson (2014). As mass-produced lumps of moulded concrete, Camden Benches have much in common with the subjects of his photography. One could easily mistake them for an anti-tank barrier like the ones in figure 5. This is no coincidence: There is a second version of the Camden Bench known as the anti-ram bench (Factory Furniture 2010), a variation of the original Camden design. Made with the same mould, it weighs 4050kg, is reinforced with a steel frame, and has publicly available specification (PAS) 68 certification, meaning it is “Home Office approved for counter-terrorism use as a vehicle blocker” (Factory Furniture 2010). The Camden Bench is therefore not simply an aesthetic reminder of war, but an act of it. It is violence embedded by design, both as an effective weapon in the war against the non-rich, and part of genuine urban defensive strategy.

Is an Object that can’t be Repurposed an Object at all?

Tim Ingold’s ecology of materials calls into question the moment at which substance becomes object, encouraging us not to isolate trees from wood or wood from chair, but to think of the complex entanglements that link them together (Ingold 2012). Traditionally, we would say that a tree is an object which becomes a raw material (wood) when we cut it down, and then it can be fashioned into an object again. If we took an axe to a chair, it would go back to being a raw material. Similarly, if we stood on the chair, it would cease being a chair, and would instead be a stool. The status of ‘material’ and ‘object’ is therefore in constant flux. According to Ingold, it is this state of liminality that defines objects (Ingold 2012). In contrast, the Camden Bench is designed to resist liminality at all costs. It will never become a notice board, a skate park, a bed, or anything else. It is a product of the same neo-liberal “super-modernity” (Auge 1992: 47) that defines what Auge refers to as “non-places” (Auge 1992). Non-places stand in opposition to anthropological place, valuing “system over history” (Auge 1992: 17) and are a symptom of the same individualism that fostered both the ASBO, and the Camden Bench. They reveal how “corporate hygiene” (Omidi 2018) has replaced “human considerations” (Omidi 2018) in our current age of consumption. In other words, they merely exist to serve a function, and are devoid of connections or entanglements: They are isolated.

These theoretical frames have been applied to the Camden Bench via its designation as an anti-object (Swain 2013, Futility Closet 2018). However, as a result of its determination to resist liminality and remain anchored to its identity as a perch, the Camden Bench has become a victim of many targeted campaigns against hostile architecture. As a result, rather than curbing so called anti-social behaviour, it has become an instigator of it, and numerous public campaigns to skate (Perraudin & Quinn 2014), sleep, and graffiti on the objects have transformed them from symbols of oppression into those of resistance. As an object, it has been absorbed into discourse referring to historic power dynamics and notions of public vs private property. Despite the fact that the Camden Bench was designed to be weaponised against divergent citizens, and neutralise the non-rich, it has been successfully repurposed as a means to fight back.

Conclusion

If policy is the right arm of the state, then design is the left. In the effort to impose neo-liberal ideologies, hostile and defensive architecture is successfully transforming London into a space that is only functional for a select few identities. While overtly cruel examples such as anti-homeless spikes have the capacity to cause public outcry, the insidiously subtle design of the Camden Bench exists quietly but is equally violent in its effect. Through its lifeless, concrete form it evokes imageries of conflict, and dystopian futurisms, whilst also fostering dystopia in the present. As Humanitarian considerations are replaced by the desire to achieve corporate hygiene, the Camden Bench is an active weapon deployed against divergent bodies, ensuring that the city is cleansed of all but biopower. Despite being repurposed as a means to fight back against these shifts, anger and activism directed towards the object itself does little to eradicate the culture that created it. As a society, we must find more significant ways to mobilise.

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Figures

Figure 1: Archives: Defensive Architecture via dismal garden. http://www.dismalgarden.com/archives/item/defensive_architecture/3094 Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 2: Archives: Defensive Architecture via dismal garden. http://www.dismalgarden.com/archives/item/defensive_architecture/3280 Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 3: A publicity shot for BBC sitcom ‘Little Britain’ Via BBC.com. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/jun/05/how-chavs-replaced-working-class Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 4: The Camden Bench via failed architecture. https://failedarchitecture.com/robert-moses-pig-ears-and-the-camden-bench-how-architectural-hostility-became-transparent/ Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 5: Archives: Defensive Architecture. Privately Owned Public Space, London. http://www.dismalgarden.com/archives/item/defensive_architecture/3030 Accessed 11/05/2021.

Figure 6: Colour swatch of available finishes for the Camden Bench via factory furniture. https://www.externalworksindex.co.uk/entry/132658/Factory-Furniture/PAS-68-Camden-concrete-bench/  Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 7: Wilson, M. (2014) The Last Stand: Northern Europe. London: Triplekite. https://www.marcwilson.co.uk/projects/thelaststand Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 8: Wilson, M. (2014) The Last Stand: Northern Europe. London: Triplekite. https://www.marcwilson.co.uk/projects/thelaststand  Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 9: Artwork by author.

Figure 10: An image posted in the subreddit r/HostileArchitecture by user ‘DillonTA’. Its original caption was: “I guess it’s not impossible to tag a Camden bench after all.

Figure 11: Photo posted to twitter by user @edizionialegre. https://twitter.com/edizionialegre/status/1135560044668473345  Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 12: Perraudin, F. & Quinn, B. (2014) Can you skate on a Camden bench? The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2014/jun/13/can-you-skate-on-camden-bench-video Accessed 11/05/2021

Figure 13: Screenshot by author via Mozilla Hubs.