Interdictory Space

Definition

Interdictory space is Steven Flusty's term (in Building Paranoia: The Proliferation of Interdictory Space and the Erosion of Spatial Justice, 1994, quoted at length in Soja 2000, p. 306) for space "specifically designed to intercept and repel would-be users." Flusty's five modes: stealthy space (hidden or camouflaged behind view impediments, intervening objects, or grade changes); slippery space (unreachable or seemingly inaccessible due to missing or contorted approach paths); crusty space (protected by harder obstructions — walls, gates, checkpoints); prickly space (difficult or uncomfortable to occupy — sprinkler systems, "bum-proof resting surfaces," and other repellent design features); and jittery space (monitored by roving patrols and/or remote sensing technologies connected to security stations). Combining these, Flusty names unfriendly "mutant typologies" of the carceral built environment: the Blockhome ("a residence 'with a crusty core of thick blank walls, often embedded in an extended jittery perimeter of alarms, video observation cameras and motion-sensitive security lighting'"); the Luxury Laager ("a relatively affluent residential community sealed behind a crusty perimeter, fenced off or built within walls sometimes reinforced by a stealthy periphery of densely landscaped berms"); and the Pocket Ghetto ("a public housing project or low-income area retrofitted with street barricades and patrolled by police garrisoned on-site").

The concept is the design-side micro-taxonomy of the carceral-archipelago: where Davis diagnoses the "architectonics of security-obsessed urbanism" at the scale of the city, Flusty specifies the details — and Soja's presentation makes the taxonomy the direct ancestor of what the wiki calls hostile-architecture (Borden's edge-hardenings being the earlier, London-based articulation of the same "prickly" devices).

Key Thinkers

• Steven Flusty (referenced, not paged — see log) — Building Paranoia (1994, Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design): the taxonomy and the mutant typologies.
• Edward W. Soja — the discourse-placement: interdictory space as the architectonics of the Carceral Archipelago, extending Davis's sadistic street environments.
• Mike Davis (referenced, not paged — see log) — the precursor diagnosis: "ingenious design deterrents," barrel-shaped and metal-spiked benches, night sprinklers, "bag-lady proof trash cages."
• Iain Borden — the independent London articulation: edge-hardenings, the 45°/150mm geometry (see hostile-architecture).
• Michel Foucault — the disciplinary frame Flusty's paranoia extends.

Related Concepts

• carceral-archipelago — the archipelago whose island-designs the taxonomy specifies.
• hostile-architecture — the wiki's prior name for the prickly subset; Flusty supplies the fuller five-mode taxonomy.
• gated-community — the Luxury Laager's vernacular form.
• privatised-public-space — the territory the interdictions protect.
• panopticon — the jittery mode's surveillance logic.
• ecology-of-fear — the demand-side that generates interdictory design.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Postmetropolis (Soja 2000) — Flusty's five modes and three mutant typologies quoted (p. 306), with Davis's sadistic street environments as the precursor catalogue (pp. 304–305).

Source Support linking rule: All entries in this section must be wikilinks to source note pages in wiki/source-notes/ using the source-notes/ path prefix. Never link to raw files — raw files are not wiki pages.

Open Questions

• Flusty's five modes are a design vocabulary — can they be operationalized as review criteria (a "prickliness audit" for plan and section), generalizing the wiki's 45°/150mm body-thickness test?
• Is interdictory space always defensive, or does the same vocabulary produce "defensive" space for the already-excluded (the Pocket Ghetto's barricades are imposed, not chosen)? Does the taxonomy need an agency column?
• Soja notes such spaces are increasingly found "in both the poor Inner as well as wealthy Outer Cities" — does interdictory design invert class direction anywhere, and what would a public-interest interdictory space (protecting, not excluding) look like?