2mo ago

ANTI PEE PAINT

In the streets of Hamburg, Germany, a new form of urban deterrent is turning public urination into an instant lesson in cause and effect. Known as “anti-pee paint,” this specialized nano-coating creates a superhydrophobic surface, repelling liquids so completely that anything touching it slides off with remarkable force. The result? Anyone attempting to relieve themselves on a treated wall experiences an immediate and unforgettable splash-back. The technology borrows from nature, mimicking the microscopic structure of a lotus leaf. Tiny ridges and air pockets prevent any liquid from adhering, meaning walls remain clean while offenders get an eye-opening consequence — all without the need for confrontation, fines, or patrols. It’s an ingenious blend of physics and human psychology: the paint doesn’t punish with authority, it punishes with instant feedback. First popularized in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district in 2015, this approach has since been trialed in other cities like London and San Francisco. While the coating is costly, city authorities note significant savings on cleaning and maintenance, and a marked decrease in repeat offenses. Beyond hygiene, it’s a striking example of how urban design and material science can work together to shape behavior. For engineers, urban planners, and city residents, anti-pee paint is both a marvel of nano-engineering and a lesson in poetic justice. The streets stay cleaner, the message is immediate, and the offender leaves with a story they won’t soon forget.

https://worksthatwork.com/artefacts/anti-pee-paint

101 comments

If enough public toilets were actually provided, this would not be a problem that needs solving.
- yeah this is actually about hating the homeless, not about making a city cleaner
  
  And - well I was going to say surprisingly, but its really not - the post I saw just before this was about transit use and a fear of violence. Which, of course, is ultimately due to not addressing the unhoused.
  
  Then they shouldn't be pissing on walls.
  
  While generally a promising approach, in the case of St Pauli, Hamburg it might be different. Yes there are lots of homeless people, but there are also LOTS of randoms going there to get drunk and be on their worst behavior. Its part of the spirit of that place.
  Anyways "not by authority" is bs imo. An electrical fence is also "direct feedback", or razor barbed wire and you wouldn't dare calling those non-authority
- Right I'm sure the people who piss in our gateway, mysteriously every Friday and Saturday while bellowing at each other, are homeless rather than smashed out of their tiny troglodyte minds.
  Hamburg has a vast number of tourists, which makes it even worse, because tourists don't have to live in the city they're pissing all over, nor see again the person they flashed because the fumbled pulling up their pants.
  
  If there was a toilet right there, do you think they would still choose the wall?
  If they would still choose the wall, do you think the paint is going to deter them?
  How will people even know that the paint is piss-splashing paint?
  Will people not immediately change their piss angle as soon as they get splash back?
  
  Yeah, not everything is about the homeless. Are there actually many homeless in Munich, compared to rude tourists?
- How many are enough?
  
  https://allinmap.app/en/map/toilets/hamburg?visible_marker=toilet
  https://www.stadtreinigung.hamburg/stadtsauberkeit/oeffentliche-toiletten/
  
  Not nearly enough, especially near the transit.
  
  If people are still peeing in the street there, then it's not enough.
  
  Most of these are not free, according to your second link.
This is hostile architecture. Build toilets instead.
- They have toilets. People are just wretched.
  
  A lot of Europe charges to use them though, whoch i find weird. Imo they should be funded by public budgets the way libraries, school buses, roads etc are.
  Like, of ya gotta pee, ya gotta pee. If you gotta pee and you don't have any Euros on you, what else are you supposed to fucking do?? Literally what are your options at that point?
  I'm sure some people would do this anyway but I suspect a lot of them can't/won't pay for a public toilet and aren't close enough to a private one. It's a UX issue
  
  Yeah, people forget that people is the reason we cannot have nice things.
  
  Not so much in London, and usually you need to pay for the public ones.
  
  Clearly not enough easily accessible toilets for people to not pee on the sides of buildings. If the problem is so big that you're considering designing hydrophobic pisser punisher paint you clearly don't have enough places for people to pee.
  
  I've been to a very large capital in Europe recently, there's been a whole three toilets when I needed one, ranging from 15 to 30 minutes away, and the best part is when I got to them, all were inaccessible because they are located inside of the park that closes doors at 18:00 (before that, in fact). The toilets are even marked 24h on the map, very convenient.
  So yeah, even not considering drunk people, there are not nearly enough toilets in a lot of places.
Maybe Europe should get some fucking public bathrooms.
Not looking at you, Switzerland, you're good.
Does that really work? I get the impression that people would go pee on that wall just to see it bounce.
- Let's scientifically try for an side angle, at which there is no measurable peeback effect any more.
  
  Nice. It would be like in India where they turn to put up some metal crates to stop rickshaws from driving there, but cars could.
  Workaround: wider wheels on the rickshaws, or modifying the distance of the wheels to fit said crates. People always find a workaround.
  
  Great, now we need to invent piss retroreflectors
- It works. I've seen videos, UK i think, where they used this stuff and then recorded what happens. The urine immediately sprays back at the urinator. They stop because they don't want pee all over their pants and shoes.
Mooie chemicals to leak onto the environment. This is really a pfas 2.0 waiting to happen
- Yup, it's fucking dumb and Its easily countered by peeing on the wall at an angle as well.
  
  Or better yet, directly onto the ground beside the wall...
- Guarantee it's a PFAS type chemical.
If we ripped the car sewers out of our streets we could probably have enough green space that it would just, ya know, soak in. But go ahead and spend public money on technogimmicks I guess.
Now they pee at an angle
- Like Wii Tanks, but with pee. Fun to play with your friends!
  
  Pii Tanks?
"the streets stay clean" yet the paint ensures that all the piss makes it down to the street
- This is what I was thinking... they didn't get rid of gravity. Also, who pees on the wall, even without a coating it's going to splash at least a little.
- Paint the streets too. Checkmate, pee
Just pee directly on to the floor then.
Piss on an angle, got it.
- If you're not aiming for the corner where the wall meets the ground, what are you even doing in life?
Hit it on a 45 degree angle along the horizontal plane and it will bounce onto the shoes of the fella next to you
- You just invented a turn-based game to play with friends.
So the homeless people peeing on the streets will now definitely smell like piss wherever they go, instead of just maybe smelling like piss? Good times.
Pee sideways at an angle? Pee on the floor?
How much does that useless paint cost?? I guess it's cheaper than installing toilets, but I bet it won't deter a single person from peeing.
- Cities: "ugh, toilets are so expensive to maintain. Remove them."
  Cities: "everything smells like piss now :("
  If there is no toilets available, a wall or a bush does the trick just fine. I ain't going to rupture my fucking bladder because some bean counter decided to count beans.
- How much does that useless paint cost??
  as much as some subcontractors to get rich
Only way it could truly work is if it were retroreflective.
And that main reason people publicly urinate is because there aren't any toilets.
##I tested Soho's anti-pee paint and I was bitterly disappointed that I didn't get soaked
###Is Westminster Council taking the p? I certainly think so
https://www.mylondon.news/news/news-opinion/i-tested-sohos-anti-pee-25798676
It's not that Hamburg doesn't have public toilets, but Hamburg is known for the "Reeperbahn" - a street lined with bars (I think the American equivalent to it would be something like Bourbon Street in New Orleans?). People go there to get wasted off their asses and no matter how many public restrooms you put up there, they will piss wherever.
(There's also an amazing documentary series about the Supermarket on that street and the characters that visit it)
- Ah, The good old pennymarkt documentary. One of the most legendary German documentaries ever created.
The streets shall run yellow... WITH JUSTICE!
Just piss around a corner onto the floor. Why are people peeing on walls, anyway?
- You make a good point. Pee on a Tree!
- I feel like this is a shared, universal male experience... But peeing outside of a toilet, everything turns into a target. A tree, a rock, a wall. Hell, the toilet itself, a urinal especially, was already a target. I could be mistaken about how Universal that is... or you don't have a penis and I don't know how to properly explain myself on this one.
Because they don't think men know how to pee at an angle?
Dunno why people think this is the worst solution. Don't many of those people love to pee in streets, rather than bother to find toilets? This sounds like an excellent deterrent, and that it works shows that people needed comparative incentive to use the toilet.
- Ever thrown a ball at a wall sideways instead of directly in front of you?
  
  Ah, that would be a loophole.
- The problem I’ve found here is public toilets are few and far between, and then majority of them are paid. Didn’t have any coins on me yesterday, so couldn’t use either of the 2 public toilets I found…
- I'd rather find toilets but when cities decide to remove them, all that's left is walls.
have these public urinators offended me? what justice do I seek?
When it rains, everyone is fucked I guess. What a stupid fucking idea this is.
- Rain is already falling, your already getting wet.
  If the rain is falling at angle sufficient enough to hit the lower section of wall, it will bounce off onto the ground, and also - re. Point #1.
- You're not very smart are you?
You know kung-fu?
Reminds me of this scene from The Naked Gun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybpKmNN61rc
New? Anti pee architecture has always been a thing, nanotech might be new but if you see diagonal wall attachments that's what they are for
Victorians did it
- Little known fact:
  Tudor era European cities were effectively bioweapon labs that wiped out 90%-95% of Native Americans within the first century of contact because they didn't have a resistance to the animal shit bacteria and viruses that made the jump to humans.
  They didn't live in filth so they never had exposure to it.
  It was densely populated cities with poor hygiene conditions that created some of the worst diseases known to humankind.
  Bathrooms serve a critical service because shit in the streets is how you get plagues.
  Thank you for attending my rant.
  
  A lot of that had to do with domestic livestock living in densely populated areas.
  Indigenous Americans didn't have very many animals that lent themselves to domestication as easily as sheep and pigs and goats and chickens. Granted a lot of these animals were native to a bunch of different regions in Africa/Asia/Europe, but there was also commerce between those regions for a very long time.
"justice" lol
That's what we call my uncle's wife who likes light green walls. We spell it different though.

101 comments