Built to Watch

Surveillance is not only a network of cameras and data systems—it is built into architecture. Buildings, streets, and urban layouts shape how people move, behave, and interact. Through visibility, circulation, and access, architecture disciplines its occupants. Surveillance spreads through the built environment, embedding control into the spaces we inhabit.

Throughout history, buildings and layouts have influenced behavior by controlling what people can see and be seen doing. Michel Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon shows how design can produce discipline through visibility. Jeremy Bentham’s circular prison, with a central watchtower surrounded by open cells, allowed constant observation. This logic has extended beyond prisons to schools, hospitals, and factories¹. Contemporary architecture continues to follow this panoptic principle. Surveillance is not external to buildings but built into their spatial logic.

Contemporary urban design shows how this idea has evolved. In today’s cities, control is exercised not through walls or fences but through subtle cues in space and technology. For example, Eindhoven’s “De-escalate” project uses light, sound, and scent to shape behavior in nightlife districts. Sensors monitor crowd density and movement. These sensors then adjust environmental factors to calm aggression. This is surveillance through modulation. This design shapes how people behave through changing its atmosphere. This shift reflects what Foucault called pastoral power. This is a form of control that operates through subtle guidance. Instead of prohibiting action, architectural design can guide it. The “De-escalate” system does not block or limit space, but it guides how people act inside it.² This feels more natural, but it works in the same way as more obvious methods of watching and shaping behavior.

Oscar Newman’s “Defensible Space” theory furthermore demonstrates how surveillance operates through design. Newman argued that safety in urban housing depends on creating territorial zones that residents can claim and observe. This idea is similar to Jane Jacobs’s “eyes on the street”. In both cases, surveillance becomes a social function built into spatial design. Architecture here becomes a system that teaches people to watch and be watched. Newman’s concept of “image and milieu” strengthens this point: housing that appears watched and cared for fosters safety, while buildings that seem isolated invite crime because they lose social visibility.³

Studies of space show that the way buildings and rooms are arranged affects privacy and how people interact. In housing where many spaces are open and connected, people can be easily seen and have less privacy. In buildings with separate, divided layouts, residents have more privacy and freedom. The Social Housing project in Cornellà de Llobregat illustrates this tension. Shared galleries encourage social contact but also reduce privacy. Residents are placed under constant mutual observation.⁴ The quick progression of these spatial shifts—from open to enclosed, from individual to communal—reveals how architecture directly shapes relationships and levels of exposure.

Material choices intensify this dynamic. Glass once symbolized transparency and modern progress. Today, glass also functions as a medium of exposure. In cities filled with glass façades, the boundary between public and private space blurs. Interiors become visible to outsiders, and visibility becomes a form of self-discipline. Steiner and Veel note that people living in transparent buildings often curate their interiors as if performing for an audience.⁵ The constant possibility of being seen shapes how people behave, even when no one is watching. Buildings make people act a certain way simply by making them visible.

Not all architecture reproduces this invasive logic. Cooperative housing projects such as La Balma and Sotrac in Barcelona experiment with flexible layouts that support both community and privacy. These examples also build on earlier discussions of defensible space and social surveillance, but they approach the issue differently. Instead of training residents to watch or be watched, the architecture supports voluntary social interaction while allowing privacy to remain self-controlled. Residents can adapt the layouts to define boundaries rather than having them imposed.⁶

Surveillance is built into architecture through the choices designers make. Every hallway, doorway, and layout decision shapes who can enter, who can see, and how people move, and interact. Circulation, visibility, and access are constant design questions, whether in panoptic prisons, social housing, or glass-filled urban buildings. Spaces are made to guide behavior even without cameras or guards. At the same time, cooperative housing experiments show that design can also allow residents to negotiate privacy and social interaction. Architecture is never neutral. Built environments organize, observe, and discipline people, embedding both subtle and overt control into the spaces we inhabit. Surveillance in the built environment is thus both pervasive and flexible, shaping daily life in ways that are often invisible but deeply influential.

1. Ruth, Michael. “Panopticon: Research Starters: EBSCO Research.” EBSCO.  ↩︎
2. Schuilenburg, Marc, and Rik Peeters. “Smart Cities and the Architecture of Security: Pastoral Power and the Scripted Design of Public Space – City, Territory and Architecture.” SpringerOpen, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 24 Oct. 2018. ↩︎
3. Donnelly, Patrick. “Newman, Oscar: Defensible Space Theory.” University of Dayton eCommons, 2010.  ↩︎
4. Moreira, Ana, and Francisco Serdoura. “The Spatial Logic of Privacy: Uncovering Privacy Patterns in Shared Housing Environments.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 1 Oct. 2025.  ↩︎
5. Steiner, Henriette. “Living Behind Glass Facades: Surveillance Culture and New Architecture.” View of Living behind Glass Facades: Surveillance Culture and New Architecture, 2011. ↩︎
6. Moreira, Ana, and Francisco Serdoura. “The Spatial Logic of Privacy: Uncovering Privacy Patterns in Shared Housing Environments.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 1 Oct. 2025. ↩︎