The obvious response to this is to guerilla install regular benches, but put wheelchair legs on the legs so we can roll sleeping homeless men into bank lobbies.
Hostile architecture
Submitted 11 hours ago by ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world to [deleted]
https://media.piefed.world/posts/IB/CH/IBCHTpvZrFnt9PG.png
Comments
Ach@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
null@piefed.nullspace.lol 11 hours ago
If this were real, consider how it would come to be. It’s obvious that even if we pretend it’s for accessibility purposes, it’s worse than just pulling up beside the bench because now you have to deal with backing into the spot.
But what if it’s more nefarious than that? No budget to put in new benches with spikes or whatever built in. But maybe there’s room in the budget for “accessibility upgrades”. Maybe a ramp was sacrificed for this idiocy.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 10 hours ago
null@piefed.nullspace.lol 10 hours ago
I gotta stop giving reality the benefit of the doubt.
b_tr3e@feddit.org 10 hours ago
This is real. It’s located in Giulianova Lido, Italy. IIRC an arts project from a local school and it is meant as a way to “integrate” wheelchairs symbolically as well as practically.
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
as well as practically.
X doubt.
This is worse than nothing, because (as a wheelchair user) there’s like 6 inches or so of clearance behind the chair. That back rail means you can’t back up to get yourself in line with your compatriots,so you’ll be in front of and misaligned with the people on either side, such that they’re literally talking behind your back.
If this design was in earnest, it’s godawful and just shows the designer had no idea what they were doing.
If it’s an art project, then I can appreciate it. If it was meant to be practical, it’s a major fail.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
practically
Ahhh, art students trying to be practical.
Microw@piefed.zip 10 hours ago
I mean, the only benefit this has is that someone in a wheelchair can now sit next to two people. Pulling up besides the bench always means that you’re on the end.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 10 hours ago
But since the wheelchair has a back to it and such, you’ll be sitting slightly in front of those two people meaning everyone will have a sore neck.
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
They couldn’t, though. Because of the space the back of the chair and the radius of the wheels requires, the person in the chair would be sitting at least a foot in front of anyone seated on the bench.
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
PARK THE FUCKING WHEELCHAIR NEXT TO THE BENCH! This has to be a trolling photoshop
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 9 hours ago
“That disabled person stole your
cookieseat”ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 9 hours ago
“That
disabled personcompany stole yourcookieseatbed”
Pudutr0n@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Virtvirt588@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
This is literally the illustration of most things within the world. The corporations/governments rather muddy the waters than actually do what has to be done.
Praise is given for effectively doing a cheap act of “niceness” that is more harmful in the long run. It is a method of deceiving the public, and taking advantage of a minority to precisely execute their evil intentions.
In this case, disability is one thing, but age and other factors are also used as a leverage point.
spacesatan@leminal.space 7 hours ago
At this point surely you could just have two individual chairs spaced about that far apart and slightly angled towards eachother. Still anti homeless but also at least a better user experience for, for lack of a better term, intended users.
Probably cheaper than the weird bench and more plausible deniability.
Dasus@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
And how exactly would one even back a wheelchair into that? Wheelchairs have backrests already, so you’d just hit the backrest of this bench before being on the same line as the other people sitting on it.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I mean, as an actual disabled person… By just like, backing up to it?
There are a few comments about this and I’m like, yeah it’s stupid as fuck, but that’s not even what they are pointing out, it’s like they can’t grasp the concept of a wheelchair backing up. I don’t want to be around when they pull into a parking spot and then can’t drive forward out of it…
And while I agree that this seems more nefarious than anything, you (everyone in this thread) GREATLY overestimates the brainpower that goes into actual accessibility ‘features’. Put escalators from and center, but I have to take the service elevator? Put 1,000 hotel rooms, but only 5 are made for accessibility? Your store has a wheelchair ramp, all the fuck at the end of the building near the loading docks? Your store has electric carts, but not enough for all your disabled customers. You don’t have enough employees to help me load my purchase, so I have to hurt myself. Shit, even paving walkways, in fucking modular concrete squares, suck ass: when (not if) the front wheels get stuck, especially if I’m being pushed, my ass gets launched.
It sucks ass being disabled, but god damn it’s like the dumbest people get assigned to accessibility planning.
Dasus@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I mean, as an actual disabled person… By just like, backing up to it?
Well, as an actual disabled person, how many different chairs do you have on a daily basis? Because as a taxi driver driving around disabled people, there’s a lot of different chairs.
I’ve never seen one without a backrest. Do you have one?
Could you back into that with a chair? Ofc.
But if yours has a backrest like all the other chairs, you’ll hit the backrest before with the back of your chair before you’d be in the same line as a person leaning back on other parts of the bench.
Not to even mention that a ton of the people that I know who use chairs have often have a bag or a backpack hanging back there.
I don’t want to be around when they pull into a parking spot and then can’t drive forward out of it…
As a professional driver, I can tell you that if you have to choose a parking place between a space that’s only just and just free (three cars around it, all parked tightly so as to not leave any extra room even close to the line), and one that is completely free, not a single car around it, you choose the latter one.
Can I reverse into the former? Ofc. Even just a few years after I started, when I was still very young, around 20, I made grown (and somewhat drunk) men give a little shriek as they thought I would crash the car when driving in places where they thought a car wouldn’t fit (because people were picked up usually from in front of a bar, and bars can exist in the weirdest places.)
So with that logic in mind, my question is why would you, as a chair user, ever want to back in to this bench, when you could just park next to it, effectively lengthening the bench?
Put 1,000 hotel rooms, but only 5 are made for accessibility? Your store has a wheelchair ramp, all the fuck at the end of the building near the loading docks?
Not a problem in the EU/Finland (idk which the regulations comes from) We got building regulations.
Shit, even paving walkways, in fucking modular concrete squares, suck ass: when (not if) the front wheels get stuck, especially if I’m being pushed, my ass gets launched.
I would’ve been proud if this wasn’t a problem either, but as someone who regularly pushed chairs, I’m so goddamn disappointed in my own city. They remodelled the market square for a parking garage they wanted to build below it. Corruption and capitalism wins and after years and years of talks, more years of building and millions of euros, we got an utterly shit market square made of roughly 40cm x 40cm tiles which won’t stay the fuck down because of the soil. I haven’t had to push a chair through that yet but I dread it for any one who does, be they pushing their own chairs or getting pushed. Hell, I’ve almost fallen down several times and I like to think I have good awareness in general.
It would be bad enough when a completely abled person falls off their feet, seems it would be much more devastating to someone in a chair, let alone if they’re traveling solo. Thankfully it’s literally the busiest place in the city, so at least anyone who gets hurt will get help quickly, but still.
It used to be centuries old paved stone, as stable as, well idk, something really stable. Perhaps a bit bumpy for a chair user, but honestly only a tiny bit, dad used to take lots of his customers in chairs there for coffee. He had his own taxi-van with a chair-lift in the back, that’s how I started as a taxi driver, working for him. And he started because his dad (my grandpa) had the first taxi the town I was born in. My father chose to prominently tape “Gentleman of the Road” in the back of the van. For aura farming when he wouldn’t start accelerating to speeding just because some dick was hurrying him up. He really impresses upon me the need to keep the car stable. But whenever he didn’t have customers in there, just me, it wasn’t as smooth, as he raced on the slippery backroads like the pro he was.
It sucks ass being disabled, but god damn it’s like the dumbest people get assigned to accessibility planning.
I do empathise and honestly while I criticise a ton of things about Finland, infrastructure for disabled access is really one thing I can’t help but be somewhat proud of. Let me see if I have a photo I took perhaps last year. It might be my previous phone and then it’s lost. (Actually binned my old phone by accident, a top of the line flagship phone that only had the sim-reader faulty gooooooooodammit I still blame myself so much for that fuckup.)
Oh I do have the photos, yeah.
This is an outhouse for disabled people, along a nature path of which roughly 60-70% is available with a chair. The route goes around a small lake and while it is regrettable the whole path isn’t available, I think even a majority of it being available is a win. Half of it is this well maintained gravel footpath that you can sort of see the material there, but around a third or so is really craggy forest on the beach on the other side and I’d argue the amount of nature you’d have to completely get rid off to pave that part as well, the places designation as a “nature trail” would really lose something. Mainly the view from the main side of the lake, which would affect disabled people as well.
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It would look better, allow for easier access, and be cheaper if the bars connecting the two park… chairs were simply not there.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
It is also hostile to the ambulatory disabled. Taking away a seat they could rest on.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 7 hours ago
That’s going to be used by teens for finding new ways to sit and show off their balancing skills until it inevitably breaks, gets vandalised because it’s already broken until it ends up surrounded by dumped household waste and rats. The budget for cleaning up is used up for making that monstrosity in the first place, so it remains there as a blight on the landscape.
uberfreeza@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Now, I had read this title as “horticulture architecture,” and I was wondering if a tree was supposed to go in the middle or something or where the tree pun would be.
JoShmoe@ani.social 9 hours ago
There’s a perfectly good bench in the background that the homeless can still use.
spacesatan@leminal.space 7 hours ago
This raises the terrifying possibility that somebody actually did buy this with the goal of inclusivity.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Lies! Anti-homeless this may be, but this bench was also created with the VERY noble intention of facilitating wheelchair-bound men to receive a handjob from two women at once!
PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
It’s 2026, Finjamin. The handjob could also be given by two men!
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Or yo mamma and yo daddy at once
Fedizen@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
But not two disabled people. Alas, this bench discriminates.
tourist@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I normally don’t read usernames, so I got fucking brain fried trying to figure out what a Finjamin is
Like, it looks like a word I should remember but it isn’t even a word
jaybone@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
Hmm. I’m seeing the person in the wheelchair giving two handjobs to people on the seats. I think they used to call this skiing.
homes@piefed.world 11 hours ago
Well, I’m sold. Except for the “women” part.
Two guys could give just as good a hand job…
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Why did you choose this way round? Surely a wheelchair-bound women taking ski lessons would be more natural?
0x0@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
Props to the wheelchair-bound well-endowed dude if he needs 2 hands to properly jizz.
starchylemming@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Lies! Anti-homeless this may be, but this bench was also created with the VERY noble intention of facilitating wheelchair-bound (wo)men to give a handjob to two men at once!