Rooms that hate you
Why the fuck are there fifteen types of chocolate in here?
I write to you from paradise. This is my current view:
This is…another place I have worked:
…
One of these is not like the other. One is a retreat centre in Berkeley with the word haven in its name, and the other is a county court in the United Kingdom I frequented as a lawyer and that inspired me to write the below:
(OK, I was doing legal research on the ethics of turning off life support — but I suspect similar ethical questions are considered on the daily by those administering the county courts).
Pretty is nice
Most writing about beautiful places is about how they make us feel. Seems like one for science:
Thank you, science. I’m sold.
The question I’m interested in is not how places make us feel, but what they tell us. Specifically, what they tell us about us: who we are, what we’re worth, why we’re here.
Sometimes, this is obvious.
The architecture below is designed to tell some people to FUCK OFF AWAY FROM HERE, WE DON’T WANT YOU (and to tell other people “don’t worry, we told them to fuck off away from here, and that we don’t want them”):
But hostile architecture (sorry, “defensive design”) is just the shoutiest type of design. Every room we walk into is telling us who we are, to it. Here are what the walls have said to me in three memorable locations, and why I think it matters.
Speak, Constellation
Constellation is an AI research centre in downtown Berkeley. It is the most comprehensively stocked workplace anyone has ever encountered. Someone I met at Inkhaven referred to it as “Disneyland, but for people who like to work”.
(I don’t have a photo of the snacks, and don’t think I could get a guest pass just to take one)
I am buzzed in the door:
“Hello. Welcome. You are very important (or might be, if we succeed) — but you knew that already, of course. You knew it the moment you passed through the security system (we take security seriously. We take taking everything seriously seriously).
You know what else is important? Your time. Why else would we have anticipated every single one of your needs, including ones you didn’t know you had? Why else the array of snacks so broad it would give a public service worker a seizure? Why else the warm, delicious meals, multiple times a day? Why else these cupboards stocked with not just pens and paper but ear plugs, eye masks, blankets, hoodies, and — I think — pre-written heartfelt letters to all of your family members, should they need emotional support?
You should never experience discomfort. You should never need to leave. Because the work is what matters. And we are so, so lucky to have you. That is completely sincere. We have even calculated exactly how lucky, based on your values-alignment and productivity — in lightcones lost per second — and you really can’t afford to spend 1,800 seconds wandering the streets at lunch”
Speak, Oxford
This is Lincoln College library, Oxford. The original building dates back to 1427, and the current library is housed in an 18th-century church.
I am shown in, on time:
“Ah, you’re here. Lovely. Sit down. No — not there. No, not there — that chair is for the sub-Rector, and only between Michaelmas and the Feast of St Frideswide. Yes, I know the other chair is too small. Yes, I know it creaks. It was built before your grandparents were born, and will be here after your grandchildren die. It is correct.
No, you may not bring in an ergonomic office chair. I’m ever so sorry that a building built in 1427 is not entirely to your liking. Is it a touch draughty? Is it frightfully cold? What do you imagine a building constructed during the Hundred Years War was meant to be — a hermetically sealed productivity pod? Exi, quaeso1.
Now. Listen. Beauty matters. Greatness matters. Love matters. You and this Claude friend of yours, are part of a long, long line of men — I mean, men and women — who have sat in that chair — without difficulty — and thought hard about the things that matter. The investment made in this room was made hundreds of years ago by men who knew that scholarship deserves stone and wood and little baby angels on the ceiling. May their conviction be instructive to you. You are lucky to be here”
Speak, Milton Keynes
(It’s this again)
Milton Keynes County Court. If a more depressing string of syllables has ever been arranged, I do not know of it.
If Milton Keynes County Court could talk — God knows it barely has the energy — here is what it would tell you:
“Oh. You’re here. The car park isn’t free, you know.
I’ll be honest: You’ve failed. I don’t just mean because of the debt or tenancy dispute or whatever other plebeian issue has brought you here. I mean generally. As a person. Janice? No, she’s been on sick leave since that nasty business in 2019.
Oh, justice? Do you mean like, will something happen to your case? Maybe. Probably a delay or a fee I’m guessing. I won’t lie to you, it ain’t gonna be like the justice with the sword or whatever. It’s gonna be the type of justice that happens under car park-style fluorescent lights, while someone microwaves a Pot Noodle in the next room. Next time, try being richer. And less of a bad person.
Oh, before you go. I just want to make sure you understand: I don’t care about you. I mean it, sincerely. I don’t care about your time. I don’t care about your comfort. And I am too tired and poor to pretend otherwise”
Speak, bedroom of shame
OK. So Constellation told me — from what I could hear over the crunching of my snacks — that I was a valuable asset in the fight against existential risk. Oxford told me that I was a fortunate guest in something that would enrich and outlast me. And Milton Keynes County Court (I can’t keep typing that phrase) told my clients they were worth nothing. What do I say to myself, in my space, that I chose?
I haven’t done my own laundry in a week. I am genuinely worried someone is going to come into my bedroom to fix the wifi, see various peptide-needles in my plant pot, and report me to the Lighthaven authorities. I’d like to say this is because I’ve been blogging 2 hard 2 function, but my bedroom has been a mess for a couple too many decades for that.
And it’s not like I’m cool with it. Part of me is distraught by the mess. But another part of me — clearly a more persuasive one — has decided my physical comfort is not a priority. My room is saying, me-to-me: You have more important things to do. You are not worthy of comfort, yet.
This reminds me, in different ways, of the places I’ve described.
The places that provided me with every type of comfort — fifteen types of chocolate and beyond — did so because they wanted important things from me. Often, these were things I wanted to give; no issues there. But it wasn’t unconditional. It was dependent on holding a certain worldview, or furthering a profit motive, or whatever else. Which is fair enough. No free lunch, no free caffeinated protein bar. Comfort serves output.
The places where I felt most in touch with something old and that expected to get older, for centuries — like Oxford, where I studied; and Middle Temple, where I worked — didn’t seem to give much of a shit about my ergonomic needs (of which there are many). They could coast on centuries of prestige and tradition and tell you to go fuck yourself if you were uncomfortable or exhausted. There were more important things to do.
Milton Keynes, of course, has no redeeming features. It reminds me of my room only in that we both need to clean the floors.
These rooms do not hate us.
But they do not yet love us, properly.
I would like to build rooms that say: You are a person with a body that deserves warmth and comfort and beauty. You are also part of a story that is much, much larger than you. I invite you to participate in it — unconditionally — on your own terms.
I would like to dedicate the first of these rooms to the person that did this at (you guessed it) Milton Keynes County Court:
Yes, that is a Christmas tree. That is a potted plant. That is topped with a plastic angel. That is holding an application notice. That is the form you use when you want to get the court to do something. That won’t happen until 2032.
And also, it is an attempt to make hostile architecture human, without any resources made available for it. The second we’re post-singularity, someone give this man a budget.
The world could be so beautiful, for everyone.
GTFO.
This is a great post. I used to work with someone who described the physical atmosphere at many legal aid offices as "Broken Chair Syndrome" - essentially that if you deal with hopeless and shitty situations long enough, you start thinking that you *don't deserve* to have nice office furniture. The broken office chair that leans to one side and lacks a wheel should be sufficient. But this discounts the message clients get from that environment - "Your lawyer isn't good enough to afford a nice chair, mainly because they have to deal with hopeless people like you." It's like an environmental spiral all the way down.
Someone give that poor hero at county court a medal.