the outside is concrete, the bench is curved and flat, and they're protected from wind and elements while you wait for a bus. If it's really hot and sunny it's markedly cooler inside one. There's room to sit on the floor if you don't want to sit on the bench.
I mean it's Canberra, I'm sure they treat homeless people badly if they see them in there but the design doesn't feel nearly as hostile as modern benches seem
tangential, but today I learned, while trying to figure out the origin of "Skateboarding is Not a Crime", that a lot of what we think of as anti-homeless architecture started as anti-skateboarding architecture
Skate-Stoppers and the Surveillance Politics of Small Spaces (PDF)
But seriously though. I can't get over the idea of "there's skateboarders in the skate park!" Absolutely Khelm-brained policy.
Well, that's what happens when time goes on and people who disagreed with the good policy (build a public skate park) didn't want to spend real money on their bad policy (grr no skating skating bad) when they came into power. Conservative policy in America is fundamentally lazy.
