Ideas like hallways that are constructed where there's a round-about with a center, reducing the length of a long hallway to where people could take cover behind or make it difficult for a shooter to take aim. The possibility of half walls built of concrete in areas that it makes it easy to take cover behind need to be taken into consideration. I feel that these design features could more than likely be designed into the building in a way that to the untrained eye would not recognize why they are there. Maybe school buildings that are designed with the central offices in the center at an upper level where there's a line-of-sight towards most common areas, making for less of a maze that some buildings seem to be constructed in. Prison design I have seen where there's no point on the grounds that you could stand and not be seen by at least two of the guard towers. I feel that school designs could potentially take a few lessons from the book of Prison design, but at the same time design schools to appear and function as a school and not a prison. Features such as raised or central points of view from the administration personnel viewing common areas such as lunch rooms or lobbies. Additional design features need to be thought through would be pedestrian flows of how students and visitors enter and exit the building. Maybe consider students enter and leave through different ingress/egress points than do visitors. The parking lot needs to be thought of how emergency personnel could gain access to the building. The roof needs to be thought of, helicopter landing pads that are invisible to most people but are there if an emergency craft needed to land. Half walls and bollards near doors could be used as cover from a shooter but could also protect entrances and crowds from vehicles in a dual-purpose manner and be disguised as planters perhaps. I do think its time that the designers of the world start thinking about building design in a way that helps protect the people in many other ways, not just to house people from the weather and elements. I do think the designs could be integrated into new buildings, and some features could be designed and retrofitted into existing structures. These designs could be augmented to function closely with technology such as metal detectors, hidden cameras, and other electronics such as entrance doors that can be locked remotely if needed by admin personnel.
I imagine there's lots of this already happening within the design world but I thought maybe publish an article that gets more people thinking and asking about building design that offers more. While we support the AEC Industry with Engineering Equipment and Surveying Supplies, we also like to think of Design and Construction Professionals as one of the most important parts to our society. They are the ones that design the buildings and grounds that assemble, house, and protect our students, friends, family and community members. -Rob Powell, EngineerSupply
