11 highlights
-
From the ancient walls that surrounded Marrakesh and Munich to the barriers erected during “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the threat of urban violence has always been a reality for cities large and small.
-
Though violence and unrest have long been known to occur in urban areas, the relative rarity of these events wasn’t enough to really influence the way buildings and spaces were designed.
-
The headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), designed by Safdie Architects, has a crescent-shaped arcade at the perimeter of the building site that serves as a security barrier, forming an architectural blockade against a vehicular attack. Designers refer to this type of element as transparent security—technically part of the building but built specifically to protect people and prevent damage.
-
The design of U.S. embassies has also undergone a dramatic reconsideration in recent decades
-
After terror attacks on embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, and Tanzania in the 1980s and 1990s, building security became a high priority in unstable areas. The 2001 attacks in the U.S. only underscored the need.
-
“We’re seeing more integration of technology with the building envelope,” says Michael Sherman, director of the policy and research division at the NCPC. “We’re seeing more use of blast-resistant material that would allow you to have less setback requirements.”
-
Sculpted granite benches emphasize its pedestrian-only status while also serving as protective barriers. And in Paris, ahead of the city’s turn hosting the Summer Olympics in 2024, plans are underway to use landscape design to eliminate the risk of vehicular attacks around the Eiffel Tower.
-
This blending of security into the urban environment is adding layers of safety to public spaces, but it’s also a cause for some concern
-
“It becomes normalized. It becomes fixed in the cityscape and in peoples’ experiences of urban spaces to the point where it’s not noticed anymore,”
-
“There are examples of whole public squares being redesigned so that the sight lines of CCTV are very clear and visible,”
-
It’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away, according to Coaffee’s new book, The War on Terror and the Normalisation of Urban Security, out later this year.