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Hostile architecture is a controversial urban design trend in which public spaces are constructed or altered to discourage people from using them in a way not intended by the owner. Also known as unpleasant design or defensive architecture it is most typically associated with discrimination against the homeless in the form of "anti-homeless spikes" — studs embedded in flat surfaces to make sleeping rough impractical.
Other forms of behaviour which are commonly designed against by hostile architecture include skateboarding, littering, loitering and urination which are deterred with methods including sloped window sills to stop people sitting, benches with armrests positioned to stop people lying on them, and water sprinklers that "intermittently come on but aren't really watering anything." Although the term "hostile architecture" is recent, the use of civil engineering to achieve social engineering is not: antecedents include 19th Century "urine deflectors". Critics of hostile architecture argue that it makes contrarianism impossible, that it replaces public spaces with commercial or "pseudo-public" spaces and uses architecture "to enforce social divisions".