The design and construction of safe and secure buildings is a primary goal for owners, architects, engineers and project managers.

In recognizing concern for natural disasters, acts of terrorism, indoor air quality, materials hazards and fires, design teams are taking a multi-hazard approach towards building design that accounts for the potential hazards and vulnerabilities.

According to the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG), designing buildings for security and safety requires a proactive approach that anticipates— and then protects—the building occupants, resources, structure, and continuity of operations from multiple hazards. The first step in this process is to understand the various threats and the risks they pose.

The WBDG Secure/Safe Committee says, there are a number of defined assessment types to consider that will lead the project team in making security and safety design decisions. This effort identifies the resources or “assets” to be protected, highlights the possible perils or “threats,” and establishes a likely consequence of occurrence or “risk.”

This assessment is weighed against the vulnerabilities specific to the site or facility. Based on these assessments and analysis, building owners and other invested parties select the appropriate safety measures to implement. Their selection will depend on the security requirements, acceptable levels of risk, the cost-effectiveness of the measures proposed, and the impact these measures have on the design, construction, and use of the building.

Most security and safety measures involve a balance of operational, technical, and physical safety methods. For example, to ensure a given facility is protected from unwanted intruders, a primarily operational approach might stress the deployment of guards around the clock; a primarily technical approach might stress camera surveillance and warning sirens; while a primarily physical approach might stress locked doorways and vehicle barriers.

In practice, all approaches are usually employed to some degree and a deficiency in one area may be compensated by a greater emphasis in the other two. When they are addressed at the beginning of a project, security measures can usually be integrated into the total design efficiently and cost-effectively.

It should be noted that in any given building, non-structural components, including general building contents, typically account for over three-quarters of the cost of a building; this figure can be even higher for specialized occupancies such as medical facilities. Additionally, structural and non-structural components can potentially interact during an incident, requiring a deliberative approach to implementing a comprehensive agenda of structural and non-structural mitigation actions.

Consistent with areas of professional responsibility, it is useful to identify four fundamental principles of multi-hazard building design:

Plan for Fire Protection

Planning for fire protection for a building involves a systems approach that enables the designer to analyze all of the building’s components as a total building fire safety system package.

Ensure Occupant Safety and Health

Some injuries and illnesses are related to unsafe or unhealthy building design and operation. These can usually be prevented by measures that take into account issues such as indoor air quality, electrical safety, fall protection, ergonomics, and accident prevention.

Resist Natural Hazards

Each year U.S. taxpayers pay over $35 billion for recovery efforts, including repairing damaged buildings and infrastructure, from the impacts of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornados, blizzards, and other natural disasters. A significant percentage of this could be saved if designers properly anticipated the risk associated with major natural hazards.

Security for Building Occupants and Assets

Effective secure building design involves implementing countermeasures to deter, detect, delay, and respond to attacks from human aggressors. It also provides for mitigating measures to limit hazards to prevent catastrophic damage and provide resiliency should an attack occur.

Note: Information in these pages must be considered together with other design objectives and within a total project context in order to achieve quality, high performance buildings.

There are currently no universal codes or standards that apply to public and private sector buildings. However, most designers agree that security issues must be addressed with other design objectives and integrated into the building design throughout the process. This will ensure a quality building with effective security. This concept is known as a multi-hazard design.

Depending on the building type, acceptable levels of risk, and decisions made based on recommendations from a comprehensive threat assessment, vulnerability assessment, and risk analysis, appropriate countermeasures should be implemented to protect people, assets, and mission.

Essential to the security plan and design of a high quality building is the implementation of appropriate countermeasures to deter, delay, detect, and deny attacks. Often the countermeasures work on the layered defense concept or “Onion Philosophy.” This concept provides for increasing levels of security from the outer areas of the site or facility towards the inner, more protected areas. Some or all of the issues outlined below need consideration for effective security design and building operations.

Unauthorized Entry (Forced and Covert)

Protecting the facility and assets from unauthorized persons is an important part of any security system. Some items to consider include:

• Compound or facility access control;

• Control perimeter: Fences, bollards anti-ram barriers;

• Traffic control, remote controlled gates, anti-ram hydraulic drop arms, hydraulic barriers, parking control systems;

• Forced-Entry-Ballistic Resistant (FEBR) doors, windows, walls and roofs;