|
Business
Architects Seek Security Guidance
(enr.com
11/7/01)
By Tom Sawyer
Ninety percent of an estimated 3,000 architects who gathered on the Web Nov. 5 for an interactive seminar on "anticipating and responding to security threats through building design," said in a live poll that security planning needs to start at the programming stage, although several questioners expressed frustration at the lack of risk-assessment guidelines available to them for advising their clients.
Phil Simon, director of communications for the national office of the American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., which hosted the no-fee session, said the "virtual seminar" had 300 participating sites, the maximum number the technology allows. "I think that is an indication that there was interest in the topic," he says.
Participants got a tour of options, considerations and case studies, although most of the intriguing details were left out of the examples–for security reasons.
A presentation on the design of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which is to replace the Alfred P. Murrah Building destroyed by a terrorist truck bomb April 19, 1995, included discussion of features that seek to give the blast-hardened building an open demeanor. Project architect Carol Ross Barney, principal with Ross, Barney & Jankowski, Inc. Chicago, Ill. spoke of using several zones of standoffs to give the site an open feeling, even in an urban environment, and of how an inner courtyard fountain doubles as a "modern moat." An entry lobby that passes between two hardened lobes of the building provides access from two sides and helps avoid the feel of a bunker, she said.
The most obvious feature, though, is the 100 ft that separates the building from uncontrolled traffic. "The important thing about blast is that it drops over distance," she said. Another security-influenced feature is the location of dispersed stairwells and egress points to ensure alternative escape routes. Structural redundancy is also more than ever a ground rule, she said, adding that a Federal Emergency and Management Agency report on the collapse of the Murrah building showed the truck bomb only destroyed one column, and progressive failure did the rest. "Basically it tore itself down," she said.
Barney says bids for construction of the replacement structure have just been received and work should start soon with completion by mid 2003.
Denis Goeser, project manager and associate at Leo A. Daly, Omaha, Neb., suggested designers approach projects by first assessing the level of risk the structure will face and the degree of protection that can be justified, given the trade-off between potential cost of loss and the cost of protections. The level of protection can be scaled from meeting a minimal goal of collapse prevention, to the prevention of all but minor damage.
Questions were raised as architects sought guidance on risk assessment. Goeser said governmental clients have access to guidelines based on building function from the Department of Defense and other government agencies. Efforts are being made to develop similar federal guidelines to offer the private sector, he said.
Goeser also noted that some protective measures bring their own liabilities. The presence of video cameras have, in some cases, resulted in successful lawsuits against building operators from people assaulted in areas they assumed were being monitored, even though the incidents occurred out of the field of view. Another liability in a blast situation can be posed by perimeter walls, which can become sources of airborne fragments, or, if improperly placed, can be simply rolled-over by pressure waves that reform on the other side, he said.
Goeser also advised that the security of mechanical rooms, air intakes and utility inlets be carefully considered. Locked manhole covers in streets may be called for. Structural engineers might also brace floors and roofs against uplift, which he said can often be accomplished with minor and relatively inexpensive modification to connections.
Another presenter, Michael Patrick, director of architectural design at Daly's, Atlanta, Ga., office, used his presentation to specifically address airports and the secure flow of passengers and baggage. He says we can expect more use of technology to scan, sniff and analyze passengers and luggage. Included will be the use of tiny radio tags to track and identify bags, and software that can be programmed to use video camera to search for specific suspects. The software will also be able to recognize "the good guys" to help them pass through security with speed. Biometric identifiers will scan fingerprints and eyeballs and chemical analyzers will sniff passengers' clothing for explosives residue as they pass through airport security screening.
The particular challenge for designers, in both new work and retrofits, Patrick said, will be to incorporate airport security systems into design so people approaching checkpoints intuitively understand what is about to happen and feel comforted, rather than apprehensive, in the "Brave New World" of air travel.
A synopsis of the seminar, which was free to AIA members as a result of support from San Raphael, Calif.-based Autodesk, should be available at www.aia.org in about three weeks.
|
