From secure building entrances and radio frequency blocking devices to elaborate lighting, colorful walkways and high-quality pedestrian environments, CRE professionals are employing a variety of discreet techniques to make properties safer and more secure.
Many office properties have long employed core design principles to heighten the safety of workers and visitors.
Expansive glazing in commercial spaces is a design element used to improve sightlines and safety. Photo courtesy of Arium AE.
Expansive glazing around main entrances, lobbies, conference rooms and office suites provide a view and a deterrent to criminal activity. Communal gathering spaces further enhance surveillance and help workers notice suspicious people or activities. Exits that funnel individuals through two sets of doors with clear signage subtly remind people to think about what’s in their bag and return any materials that shouldn’t leave the building.
“If you do security design right, people won’t notice that you are influencing their behavior or making their life in that space better, but you are,” said Kelly Ormsby, Senior Project Manager with Arium AE.
In a growing number of Maryland office buildings, architects, owners and tenants are now leveraging safety design to prevent the theft of intellectual property or confidential material.
“We are seeing an increase in acoustical design requirements. We are also having conversations about new radio frequency protection strategies, especially in secure government spaces and contractors’ offices, involving guidelines which we weren’t seeing 10 years ago,” Ormsby said.
Detailed, sound-proofing designs are addressing that heightened desire to prevent discussions of sensitive, proprietary or classified information from being overheard, Ormsby said. In addition to installing sound-blocking walls, designers ensure that adjacent exterior walls are also sound-blocking, install insulation around metal mullions, seal door frames and thresholds to prevent sound transmission, and ensure that penetrations for electrical outlets or other infrastructure don’t provide pathways for sound to carry.
To block radio frequency (RF) listening devices, more office designs include RF-blocking films over windows and waveguides in mechanical ducts. Design and construction plans also ensure that offices are free of any small gaps that could allow RF penetration.
“I think of sound and radio frequency like water: If there is any kind of gap, they will go right through it,” Ormsby said.
On occasion, security measures at office buildings also address the prospect of a physical assault on the property by installing ballistic or force-protection products.
For one recent office project, Arium AE designed a highly secure main entrance that includes Level 3 ballistics protection – enough to block several shots from a .44 Magnum or blunt force with an object.
Colorful street markings at Johnston Square make drivers more attentive. Photo courtesy of the Neighborhood Design Center.
“The goal is to block someone from entering long enough for other people to get to safety and for help to arrive,” she said.
Creating that level of protection meant installing very thick Level 3 glazing, a Level 3 ballistic door frame and adding fiberglass panels inside the wall around the entry to prevent any point of failure in the glass, frame or surrounding gyprock that would enable an intruder to enter.
Most safety measures on commercial properties, however, are much less daunting and often innocuous.
Increasingly, retail centers, business districts and mixed-use communities are employing some fundamentals of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). Although the CPTED model is more commonly associated with K-12 schools, it can promote safety in nearly any environment through its five design principles:
- Natural surveillance through improved visibility
- Natural access control through clear boundaries around properties and prominent entrances to buildings
- Territorial reinforcement to demonstrate the ownership and appropriate uses of the property
- Heightened maintenance to show a property is tended and secured
- Social management that encourages people to use the property in positive ways.
A study of CPTED design principles applied to several neighborhoods in Philadelphia concluded that gun violence subsequently dropped by 29.9 percent, burglaries by 21.9 percent and overall crime by 13.3 percent.
In Baltimore, the Neighborhood Design Center has helped community groups implement CPTED projects in residential and commercial areas. The projects have delivered insights on how to create safer environments, said Jen Goold, Executive Director.
“Super high quality pedestrian environments create the highest level of safety through environmental design,” Goold said.
Layered lighting – which mingles street lights, building lights, even lighted art installations – improves safety in outdoor spaces. Photo courtesy of the Neighborhood Design Center.
Such environments include a physical layout that has few visual barriers and provides individuals with high visibility of their surroundings. They also include extensive, layered lighting.
“Over-lighting a place actually makes people feel less safe,” Goold said. “You have to be more nuanced in your lighting to make people feel safe and comfortable.”
That can be achieved by combining streetlights with string lights over outdoor areas, illuminated signs on buildings, public art that is lit and other design features.
“Also at the pedestrian level, people want something visual and psychologically friendly about every 15 feet for them to feel comfortable walking in that area,” Goold said, noting that people on the street are key to a safe environment. “So, you have to create a lot of visual variety with storefront displays or public spaces. Including things that make people smile, that add a little humor or delight will create spaces that people truly gravitate towards rather than just tolerating.”
Even the color of lines painted in the road can improve safety, Goold said.
“Having interesting visual elements outside of your car really changes driver behavior,” she said. “If the road landscape is very monotonous and doesn’t have visual changes, you tend to drive faster and pay less attention to whether there is a pedestrian nearby. Having colorful crosswalks, public art, street trees, all of those things wake you up as a driver and make you more conscious of other people and things around you.”