Lucy Garland
Senior Security Consultant, Hoare Lea
Belonging not barriers.
Lucy Garland
Senior Security Consultant
Belonging not barriers.
Fresh perspectives
New voices of the built environment
How do we design secure cities that don’t look like citadels? And integrate security into urban planning so that it works for all?
While an outcome-focused, non-aesthetic design approach is important to sites requiring an overt display of security risk reduction, other sites present an opportunity to curate a security design with beauty and belonging in mind.
When it comes to hostile vehicle mitigation in urban spaces, for instance, implementing bollards everywhere often doesn’t feel like a proportional response. While the threat may be credible, it is important to find the middle ground between designing out risk and promoting an unconscious feeling of safety instead of an excessive awareness of danger and heightened worry. This middle ground must consider accessibility, too: a full ring of bollards around a hospital would likely present problems for wheelchair access, and this is just one example of many.
Besides, a gung-ho, wholesale implementation of a single measure, in isolation, fails to create the layered approach necessary to achieve a depth of protection. Our public realm design must be able to adapt and scale with the ever-changing threat landscape. Take, as a case in point, the move away from explosive devices as the terrorist modus operandi now that purchase is more closely monitored.
It’s about design that’s proportionate to current risk, dynamic in the understanding that this will change over time. A happy medium lies in hidden design. Think: chicanes populated with benches and planters encasing robust crash-rated cores. This type of thing, along with good lighting, clear sightlines, accessible seating, and community presence in a flexible public space, is known as ‘soft’, inclusive security – as opposed to ‘hard’ security which can involve a more defensive, militarised aesthetic, and be potentially seen as aggressive or intimidating.
This simple flow diagram shows how feeling considered in a space fosters security-promoting attitudes and behaviours
Life-enhancing security.
Visually open, socially inclusive cities are stronger and safer than those reliant on hard security which can signal distrust, exclude marginalised groups, feel hostile or unwelcoming, and prioritise the safety of some at the expense of others. Security should enhance public life, not restrict it, and that goes for everyone.
Criminologists link structural marginalisation, inequality and social exclusion to a higher exposure to conditions increasing the likelihood of crime. Research (Brooke Janes, 2015) has also shown that community belonging helps reduce criminal involvement in a youth contingent. Marginalisation can create resentment and vulnerability to antisocial behaviour and, in a cycle of social dysfunction, weakened community ties contribute to delinquency. ‘Strain theory’ suggests that crime occurs when there’s a gap between life goals and legitimate means of achieving them.
Creating safe cities without sacrificing openness and aesthetics involves principles of proportionate and innovative design.
More than compliance.
From a financial perspective, for a client or developer, inclusive security is more than simple compliance.
If we feel considered and included by a space, we return to it and we spend time and money there. If a space is designed inclusively to consider neurodiversity, for example, an accessibility-related public realm disturbance, that may once have been mistakenly labelled antisocial behaviour, may not even occur in the first place.
When people feel that they belong, they are more likely to monitor for and respond to unwanted or suspicious activity to protect the space they feel at home in, too.
We can create safer cities without sacrificing openness and aesthetics. Multi-disciplinary approach ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design’, for instance, aims to reduce victimisation, deter criminal acts, minimise fear and build a sense of safe, community ownership.
Universally inclusive, human-centred design itself is a soft security strategy. For example, a consistently lively street is its own natural surveillance so is inherently safer; while making a development multi-use means there are more avenues of activity, resulting in a passive sort of safety.
We should be using the soft and more inclusive approach to better inform the hard approach, too – ensuring that even where such hard measures are really necessary, the space is still accessible to users.
Photo by Marek Lumi on Unsplash
Beyond wheelchair access.
While wheelchair access is incredibly important, we are becoming more aware that different people experience the world in varied, often less visible, ways. Along with the spectrum of physical experience, there’s cognitive experience to contemplate – encompassing neurodiversity, intellectual disability, and mental illness. With cultural and linguistic diversity and gender-specific experience to think of, the list of considerations is ever-expanding.
Understanding user groups
Different cohorts encounter a space in unique ways so a one-size-fits-all approach can discount many. Needs differ depending on project location, demographics, and intended space use. For example, rich cultural experience often thrives on large community and integration, which may conflict with a security-led approach involving segregated seating to deter loitering and rough sleeping.
Some adaptations may not align with a development’s security needs, and vice versa. We often recommend designing out of recesses to enhance visibility and natural surveillance, but this reduces the provision of transition or rest spots for those requiring physical or psychological breaks on a journey. A fine balance may be required.
It benefits everyone, in the end Inclusivity adaptations are almost always beneficial to the wider experience, too.
- Tactile paving assists visually impaired users and acts as an anti-slip surface for all users in wet weather conditions.
- Automatic doors, critical for those with physical impairments, are helpful for people using strollers, or with sensory challenges.
- Sufficient appropriate lighting is essential for those with visual impairments, while also supporting personal safety for women and girls.
An inclusive design reduces the overall security risk profile for a development. Create inclusive, accessible spaces, and you create positive outcomes.