In cities across the world, urban design is increasingly oriented around preventing people from resting. Details like seats with bisecting railings, ledges with embedded spikes, and railings instead of benches are just a few ways that “hostile architecture”—or architecture that makes public spaces less accessible, especially to unhoused people—shows up in city landscapes. 

Now, a design firm in San Francisco wants to flip that narrative on its head by doing the exact opposite: building a four-mile-long bench.

The concept, created by the firm Sitelab Urban Studio, is one of six winners of “Market Street Reimagined,” an international call for design proposals to rejuvenate San Francisco’s downtown Market Street. According to Laura Crescimano, cofounder and principal of Sitelab, the firm previously identified........

© Fast Company