By Juan Sebastián Pinto

Marissa Mead, director of art integration at Svigals + Partners, a Connecticut-based architecture studio, points to Baltimore’s Design for Distancing Ideas Guidebook as an example of a well-integrated resource for non-hostile design interventions.

The City of Baltimore, along with The Baltimore Development Corporation, The Neighborhood Design Center, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, released the guidebook after evaluating multiple design proposals responding to the pandemic. They judged submissions on criteria prioritizing "physical distancing" instead of "social distancing," and sought to create inclusive, healthy, and equitable environments. These solutions will be deployed throughout small business districts in the city this summer.

"As municipalities plan for distancing, they must not forget the importance of social infrastructure in our communities," says Mead. "The more interaction that takes place in a community, the more neighbors come to know one another and look out for one another. The strength of a neighborhood’s interpersonal bonds has a direct relationship with how a community fares in times of crisis."

Mead’s teammate, Julia McFadden, associate principal at Svigals + Partners, acknowledges that while the psychology of influencing behavior through environmental cues is not well understood, hostile architecture often works against its own goals.

"The incongruity is that an environment that is uplifting and inviting actually deters more unwanted behavior than does an overtly hostile design," she says.

As one of the designers behind the new Sandy Hook Elementary School and a related memorial, the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing, she has been forced to balance very serious threats to public security with the need to create welcoming environments that nurture a community traumatized by violence.

It wasn’t too long ago that designers were suggesting dystopian and defensive solutions to school shootings, such as defensive furniture and bulletproof backpacks. By contrast, the resulting design that McFadden and her team unveiled for Sandy Hook Elementary takes no such stance—it’s simply a warm, well lit, inviting place that offers students, teachers, and staff green spaces, artwork, and comfort.

Read the full Dwell article here