Camden bench

The Camden bench is a type of concrete street furniture. It was commissioned by Camden London Borough Council and installed in Camden, London, in 2012.

It is designed specifically to influence the behaviour of the public by restricting certain uses and behaviours and instead to be usable only as a bench, a principle known as hostile architecture. The bench has been called "the pinnacle of hostile architecture". Produced by UK company Factory Furniture, the bench is designed to deter use for sleeping, littering, skateboarding, drug dealing, graffiti and theft. Per design critic Kurt Kohlstedt, author of The 99% Invisible City:

The complex shape of this seating unit makes it virtually impossible to sleep on. It is also anti-dealer because it features no slots or crevices to stash drugs in; it is anti-skateboarder because the edges on the bench fluctuate in height to make grinding difficult; it is anti-litter because it lacks cracks that trash could slip into; it is anti-theft because recesses near the ground allow people to tuck bags behind their legs away from would-be criminals; and it is anti-graffiti because it has a special coating to repel paint. On top of all of this, the object is so large and heavy that it can also serve as a traffic barrier. One online critic called it the perfect "anti-object."

It attempts to achieve this primarily through angular surfaces (deterring sleepers and skateboarders), an absence of crevices or hiding places, and non-permeable materials (via a waterproof anti-paint coating). It is not secured to the ground and can be moved by a crane attaching to built-in anchor points. Due to its weight, it is also designed to function as a roadblock.