Architecture of Control

I remember going to a lecture as a student about the strategies used in malls and large shops in attempting to control the behaviour of their clients. This handy A-Z of retail tricks (via) is a nice summary of the main ones. There is also a weblog called Architectures of Control in Design which takes up these issues in design everywhere. I really think these strategies can backfire ‘Defensible space’ is great when its windows overlooking shared squares making a sense of community but I believe it backfires when you are trying to stop a bunch of kids from enjoying themselves by making everything in the public realm so aggressively styled its unusable.