Foreboding barricades give way to aesthetic designs

Aug 8, 2006 11:16 AM

Anti-terrorist barricades that went up to protect public buildings after Sept. 11, 2001, are slowly disappearing from the public landscape. They're not going away, just being better disguised.
Bollards and concrete highway barriers meant to keep out bomb-carrying vehicles are giving way to barricades designed to blend with the appearance of streets and buildings, as highlighted in a recent USA Today report.
The goal now is to make public places safe but not scary. USA Today lists these examples:
* In Chicago, low walls wide enough to sit on surround flower beds and protect the 100-story John Hancock Building. They replaced temporary barricades.
* In Seattle, a large lily pond outside the 2-year-old federal courthouse acts as a moat.
* At the state Capitol in Sacramento, bollards linked by steel cables are being installed around the building, but they will be hidden inside hedges.
* At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, concrete barriers will be replaced with a low granite-walled embankment by the end of the year, according to National Parks Service spokesman Bill Line.
The design is similar to one at the Washington Monument. Last summer, concrete barriers around the obelisk were replaced by terraced, walled embankments that a truck cannot drive over, the newspaper reports.
After seven years surrounded by concrete barriers, the monument is now "the poster child for good security design," Nancy Somerville of the American Society of Landscape Architects tells USA Today. "I don't think anybody coming to it and walking up those lovely curving paths or sitting on those low walls has any clue that they are there for security."
* In the streets surrounding the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan, some barricades have been replaced with bronze-covered blocks 4 feet long and 30 inches high that function as benches and are a "sculptural alternative to bollards," says Graeme Waitzkin of Rogers Marvel Architects, which designed the area's security renovation. A long fountain is planned to block off a secure area on the sidewalk outside the exchange.
Obvious blockades, such as the highway barriers and concrete planters that followed 9/11, create unfriendly spaces that are difficult to navigate and where people don't want to linger, says Mark Rios, a Los Angeles landscape architect who is writing a guide for government agencies on good security design.
"The optimum security from terrorists is to wall everything off and make a fortress," Rios tells the newspaper. "The real secret is how do you create a public civic experience that is open and free and yet keeps everyone safe."
Even harder than installing unobtrusive security is knowing when to stop. Ring one building with a moat, a wall or a line of steel posts, and "the next building becomes the target," says David Levy, a senior planner at the National Capital Planning Commission. "At some point, you have to ask yourself what makes sense. Do you put perimeter security around every building in a city?"

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