Baby Proofing by Design: What Hostile Architecture Taught Me

The last 10% of baby proofing is where chaos meets clever design

I’m currently in a phase of parenthood where my main hobby is moving objects three inches to the left and hoping for the best. It’s called baby proofing, and I’m bad at it. My kid defeats every barrier I build, which has made me weirdly attentive to how cities solve the same problem. Cities are full of invisible nudges that shape behavior. Spikes on ledges keep people from sitting, benches get dividers that make lying down feel like squeezing between airplane armrests, and walls sprout mysterious metal knobs that exist solely to ruin a skateboarder’s afternoon. This is hostile architecture, design with a “no” baked in.

The idea dates back centuries, from Victorian “anti-homeless” spikes outside mansions to modern public benches you’ll see in San Francisco’s Civic Center, carefully sculpted so no one can ever stretch out. Hostile architecture in San Francisco often goes unnoticed (think Fountain at One Bush Plaza) because it’s minimalist and unobtrusive, yet it actively makes public spaces uncomfortable.

Hostile architecture everywhere (photo by Otacilio Maia on Unsplash)

I have strong feelings about the concept, though probably not the ones you’re expecting. One afternoon, after peeling my toddler off the back of the couch for the tenth time, it hit me. If I used the same principles around the house, he wouldn’t even notice. Baby proofing feels like hostile architecture, only with fewer lawsuits.

Let me give you an example. I was trying to keep my toddler from climbing on top of a specific chair. First, I wedged objects around it so they wouldn’t move. That didn’t work. I stacked sweaters and random kitchen utensils on the seat, even laid ladles across it like I was creating an obstacle course. My toddler’s response? He treated every “barrier” like a challenge, dismantling my careful arrangements with glee. In the process, I had accidentally built him a free climbing wall with bonus texture. He turned the forbidden surfaces into an adventure playground, completely unconcerned with my clever designs.

The only semi-successful test was placing random objects on the coffee table, mimicking those benches with metal bumps designed to prevent naps. A colander and mixing bowl turned the table into an unstable surface, which slowed him down barely long enough for me to grab my coffee. Progress, if you can call it that.

What I didn’t expect as I was (accidentally) turning my home into a fortress, was that it started to feel like I’m living in one. I caught myself eating lunch standing at the kitchen counter because sitting down felt like admitting I’d lost control. The house stopped being a place where we lived and became a place I was constantly defending. Every surface was a potential threat, every corner an enemy position. I was exhausted, my kid was confused about why everything fun was suddenly illegal, and I couldn’t remember the last time either of us had relaxed.

I kept thinking about this feeling. It reminded me of something urbanist Mike Davis wrote about hostile architecture being “the militarization of urban space.” Swap “urban” for “domestic” and suddenly my living room makes perfect sense. Every time I put up a barrier, my kid took it as a challenge. But there’s something darker here, too. When cities design spaces to repel people, they’re treating human behavior as a threat to be managed rather than a reality to work with. Was I doing the same thing? Treating my toddler’s natural curiosity like an invasion to be repelled instead of energy to be channeled?

Spikes, slants, bumps. What urban designers see as deterrents, toddlers see as a level-up. Kind of like the Embarcadero benches that were designed to keep adults from lingering, but somehow my toddler found a way to treat them like a jungle gym.

That’s the last 10 percent of baby proofing, where your system meets a toddler with raccoon-level ingenuity.

Look, we have the basics. Outlet covers, cabinet locks, the standard safety gear. But my principle is simple. You can’t baby proof the whole world. Eventually, you have to teach your kid how to navigate it. The problem is that until they’re old enough to understand directions, you need a bridge solution. This was mine.

What worked instead was redirecting flow. I learned that toddlers are like water. You can’t block them, you can only channel them. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Slide a chair a few inches toward the wall and suddenly he’s funneled into the toy corner instead. Build a pillow fort in the middle of the room and the couch magically loses its appeal. Put the good books on a higher shelf and fill the bottom shelf with board books he’s allowed to demolish. The trick is making the “yes” option more interesting than the “no” option, which turns out to be easier than fortifying every surface in your house.

One move that saved my sanity was creating what I call “sacrifice zones.” I gave him one drawer in the kitchen filled with plastic containers and wooden spoons. He can empty it seventeen times a day if he wants. Same with a low cabinet in the living room. It’s his, stocked with things that won’t break or hurt anyone. When he’s in demolition mode, I steer him there instead of playing defense everywhere else. These zones save my sanity and take the pressure off the rest of the house.

Another strategy is the strategic mess. Sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. I leave toys scattered in specific paths between the danger zones and the safe zones. It’s like breadcrumbs, except the breadcrumbs are small toy cars and blocks. He stops to investigate, gets distracted, and forgets he was headed for the bookshelf of doom. The house looks chaotic, but it’s controlled chaos with a purpose.

Would I use hostile architecture as baby proofing again? No. My house started to feel less like a home and more like the waiting area at Embarcadero station. Turns out the secret is not designing for “no,” but designing for “yes, over there, please, for the love of god.” I just relocated the chaos without managing it.

Baby proofing, like city design, is fundamentally about nudging chaos in the right direction. The best setups aren’t about saying no. They’re playful, flexible, and somehow know when to step back and let life happen.

toddler_safety = (flow + redirection) / rigid_barriers

The more you channel instead of block, the less you end up living in a transit station. A couch for climbing and tumbling without smashing knees, a bookshelf made to explore without causing a book avalanche, a coffee table daring to be tested but leaving everyone intact.

Though if I’m honest, I’m still working on the denominator. Last week I found him using the sacrifice drawer as a stepping stool to reach the stove knobs. Water always finds a crack.

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