Essay

It's What You Want

Everyone wants a safe(r) place to live, to work and to do everything in between. I’m sure you’re no different.

So how does architecture contribute to safety? And what is its connection with a person’s sense of safety? What role does architectural design play?

Safety is a really important part of what architecture can do. In buildings, your occupant should feel not only healthy and comfortable, but also safe.

That’s why I’m writing this article as the first of a three part series dedicated to architecture and safety.

Look Around

A good place to start with this complex topic is what I call the “surrounding area”. Your building’s site resides within a certain context: whether it be a neighborhood, urban city or other surrounding. As a designer you should understand the safety climate and design accordingly.

But how do you do that?

Well, what goes on outside, can be carried inside. This can be either good or bad. That’s why your building’s surrounding area is so important.

The way your architecture communicates through its exterior environment may call for you to ask specific questions regarding its shared exterior spaces, green-spaces, site plan, traffic patterns and so on.

Of course, as an architect you also need to be concerned with your occupant’s safety by designing with water, fire, barrier and accidents in mind. (1) But there is a core question which cuts to the heart of why your building might or might not illicit a sense of safety from the moment your visitors approach your building.

The Big Question

It’s all about Community. I just heard this great radio broadcast from Radio Netherlands Worldwide where the author Anna Milton discusses this exact point. She explains that people don’t just feel safer because they have locks on their doors; but, that people feel safer in environments that foster and promote “trust between strangers”. (2)

Milton’s remarks lead to the big question: Does your architecture evoke feelings of safety because it shelters its occupants from the rest of the surrounding area, or does your architecture evoke feelings of safety because it is an environment that is designed to foster trust? (2)

In other words, when you design your building, is it to be an “island” that shuts out the rest of the crime-ridden surrounding area — driving people to isolate themselves from the rest of the community?

Of course, architecture needs to shelter its occupants to some extent; but doing this too much may actually be contributing to the crime problem, and your occupant’s sense of fear.

How to Build for a Sense of Safety

In the next article, Part 2, you will learn how to design to foster safety without going to such extremes. Your designs will balance the best of both worlds, where you provide shelter and refuge for your occupants while also giving them a way to connect with their local surroundings.

By bringing safety through your design to the surrounding community, you will help not only your occupants inside, but also the crime-ridden neighboring areas — two steps toward helping to solve the problem.

TO FINISH THIS ARTICLE SERIES, READ:

• Next Article: Keeping Your Occupants Safe by Building Community — Part 2

• Next Article: Buildings that Cause Occupants to Feel Fear — Part 3

References

(1) Objectives of Architecture. Archi-field. June 19.2008.

(2) Earthbeat – Safety in cities and the architecture of fear. RNW – Radio Netherlands Worldwide. On Air: September 17-19, 2009.

Image Credit: © Nikolais | Dreamstime