The embassy of the future recommendations for the design of future U.S. embassy buildings

About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created fr...

Author: Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings | Building Research Board | Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems | National Research Council.

16 downloads 519 Views 737KB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.

i

The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings


ii

The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings Final Report NOTICE TO ACCOMPANY UNCLASSIFIED REPORT September 1986 This is an unclassified version of the original report submitted in January 1986 to the U.S. Department of State by the Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings, of the Building Research Board (BRB), Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council. This summary report does not include certain passages and materials that appeared in the original report transmitted to the State Department, which contained information and recommendations that were deemed by the State Department to be classified. Also, the original committee report transmitted to the State Department was accompanied by eight technical appendixes that address areas of particular interest and concern. All of these appendixes were deemed by the State Department to contain information of a classified nature, not suitable for publication in an unclassified document. Readers of this report are urged to take into account the fact that this committee's work spanned a period of nearly 18 months, during a time of substantial and rapid change within the State Department's Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO). This


iii

report, therefore, reflects conditions and practices that were in a state of transition. By the time of the report's transmittal, many of the situations identified by the committee had been addressed by FBO. At the time this unclassified report was released, many of the committee's recommendations had been implemented; others were under active consideration.

Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings Building Research Board Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1986


iv NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. The original report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. The Council operates in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy under the authority of its congressional charter of 1863, which establishes the Academy as a private, nonprofit, self-governing membership corporation. The Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in the conduct of their services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. It is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. The National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine were established in 1964 and 1970, respectively, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences. The original report was prepared through the Building Research Board, which is a unit of the Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems of the National Research Council. It was prepared under Contract No. 1030-562112 between the National Academy of Sciences and the State Department. For information regarding this document, write to the Director, Building Research Board, National Research Council, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20418. Printed in the United States of America

National Academy Press The National Academy Press was created by the National Academy of Sciences to publish the reports issued by the Academy and by the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under the charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences by the Congress of the United States.


v

BUILDING RESEARCH BOARD 1985-1986 Chairman GEORGE S. JENKINS, President, Consultation Networks, Inc., Washington, D.C. Members ROSS B. COROTIS,

Chairman, Department of Civil Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland RAY F. DeBRUHL, Director, State Construction, North Carolina Department of Administration, Raleigh, North Carolina RICHARD B. DeMARS, Chairman, Geupel-DeMars, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana DAVID R. DIBNER, Senior Vice-President, Bernard Johnson, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland ROBERT C. DOBAN, Senior Vice-President, Science and Technology, OwensCorning Fiberglas Corporation, Toledo, Ohio EZRA D. EHRENKRANTZ, President, The Ehrenkrantz Group, New York, New York DENOS C. GAZIS, Assistant Director, Semiconductor Science and Technology, IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York JOHN T. JOYCE, President, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, Washington, D.C. RICHARD H. JUDY, Director, Dade County Aviation Department, Miami, Florida FREDERICK KRIMGOLD, Associate Dean for Research and Extension, Virginia Tech, Alexandria, Virginia ROBERT P. MARSHALL, Turner Construction Company (Retired), Vero Beach, Florida RICHARD L. TUCKER, Director, Construction Industry Institute, The University of Texas, Austin RALPH WIDNER, Executive Director, Greater Philadelphia First, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


vi

COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH FOR THE SECURITY OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS Chairman DAVID R. DIBNER,

Bernard Johnson, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland

Members RICHARD T. BAUM,

Jaros, Baum and Bolles, New York, New York Institute, Chicago, Illinois ROBERT C. BREWSTER, U.S. Ambassador (Retired), Washington, D.C. RICHARD A. DAY, Severna Park, Maryland CHRISTOPHER DEGENHARDT, EDAW, Inc., San Francisco, California BRIAN M. JENKINS, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California STUART L. KNOOP, Oudens + Knoop, Architects, Washington, D.C. MICHAEL R. MORRIS, Hanscomb Associates, Inc., Chicago, Illinois JOHN C. PIGNATO, Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., Boston, Massachusetts LESLIE E. ROBERTSON, Leslie E. Robertson Associates, New York, New York SEYMOUR A. BORTZ, IITResearch

Liaison Representatives ROBERT BURKE,

The Smithsonian Institution U.S. Army Corps of Engineers CHARLES CULVER, National Bureau of Standards SAMUEL E. DUNCAN, Veterans Administration ROBERT FURLONG, U.S. Air Force RALPH JUSELL, U.S. Postal Service JOHN MOYER, General Services Administration BART RINEHART, The Smithsonian Institution MICHAEL YACHNIS, Naval Facilities Engineering Command DONALD B. BALDWIN,

State Department Representatives WILLIAM E. BISCHOFF,

Acting Chief, Communication Security Division


vii DONALD J. BOUCHARD,

Assistant Secretary for Administration Office of the Inspector General GREGORIE W. BUJAC, Chief, Physical Security Division RICHARD N. DERTADIAN, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Foreign Buildings Operations DAVID C. FIELDS, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director, Diplomatic Security Service PETER E. GURVIN, Civil Structural Engineer, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations KENNETH C. KIDWELL, Chief, Communications Security Division ROBERT LAMB, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Diplomatic Security DENNIS LUNDSTEDT, Chief of Fire Protection, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations WILLIAM Mc COLLOUGH, Assistant Director for Building Design, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations DAY MOUNT, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Systems ROBERT C. RIBERA, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications RICHARD ROBERTS, Deputy Chief, Standards and Design, Physical Security Division JOHN WOLF, Physical Security Division HARVEY A. BUFFALO, JR.,

Consultants and Contractors KATHLEEN ALMAND,

Cabin John, Maryland Daytona Beach, Florida ROLAND M. BINKER, Metcalf and Associates, Washington, D.C. MICHAEL W. DAVIS, The Perimeter Enhancement Group, Alexandria, Virginia WILMOT ELMES and JOHN MAGLIANO, Syska and Hennessy, New York, New York DAVID B. HATTIS, Building Technology, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland WILLIAM A. KEENAN, P.E., Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory, Port Hueneme, California EARLE W. KENNETT, JR., Kensington, Maryland JAMES R. RILEY, Fort Lauderdale, Florida HEINZ R. TRECHSEL, H. R. Trechsel Associates, Germantown, Maryland JEANETTE A. BEHRENDS,


viii

JAMES D. WILLIAMS

JOHN P. EBERHARD,

THOMAS V. VONIER,

and DAVID SHEBY, The WLS Group, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Building Research Board Staff

Director Project Director PETER H. SMEALLIE, Senior Program Officer PATRICIA M. WHOLEY, Administrative Assistant DONNA F. ALLEN, Senior Secretary SHEILA A. DAVIS, Senior Secretary DELPHINE D. GLAZE, Administrative Secretary


PREFACE

ix

PREFACE

In late 1984, the U.S. Congress, responding to growing concerns over the security of U.S. Foreign Service personnel and facilities abroad, authorized the State Department to carry out advanced research on the development and application of state-of-the-art security measures. The State Department sought the advice of the National Research Council's Building Research Board (BRB). The BRB established for this purpose in early 1985 the Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Its members include distinguished persons from a variety of fields, including building design and construction, landscape planning and design, physical and communications security, cost estimation and control, architecture, structural engineering, and mechanical and electrical engineering. The committee also includes an ambassador of the United States (retired), a leading expert on terrorism and terrorist incidents, and liaison representatives from other agencies of the U.S. government that have active foreign and domestic construction programs. The committee and staff, aided by consultants and contractors expert in fields related to building design and security, have conducted detailed inquiries into a broad range of subjects that are concerned with the security of personnel and vital information in U.S. embassy buildings. The committee has maintained active contact with many offices within the State Department, as well as with the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security. Members of the committee and staff traveled to a number of foreign posts and received numerous briefings from the State


PREFACE

x

Department and from other U.S. government agencies with related interests. This report summarizes the committee's recommendations after more than a year of work. The recommendations are concerned with security-related issues in virtually every aspect of the planning, design, construction, and management of the State Department's overseas buildings. In view of the plans now being implemented by the State Department to build anew, relocate, or substantially modify a large number of foreign posts, and in the face of everincreasing concern over acts of terrorism and espionage directed against U.S. citizens and facilities abroad, the committee's work has taken on added urgency and significance.


CONTENTS

xi

CONTENTS

1

SUMMARY

2

THE COMMITTEE'S CHARGE

11

3

THE COMMITTEE'S WORK APPROACH Committee Structure Federal Agency Liaison Representatives The Study Process

14 14 16 17

4

FORCES THAT WILL SHAPE EMBASSIES OF THE FUTURE The Concentration and Colocation of User Agencies Within the Embassy and Compound The Proliferation of Electronic Information Management Systems The Growth in Incidents of Terrorism, Espionage, and Sabotage Appropriate Architectural Expressions of the U.S. Government Presence Abroad

21 23

COMMITTEE FINDINGS: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS Changes in Current FBO Processes and Practices The Prime Importance of Building Sites

29

5

1

24 25 27

29 30


CONTENTS

Clear Physical Separation of Sensitive and Less Sensitive Chancery Building Areas The Need for Building Flexibility and Ease of Expansion Building Control and Management Systems 6

7

8

9

DESIGN CRITERIA FOR A NEW GENERATION OF U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS Definition of the Design Threat Performance-Based Criteria and Recommendations

xii

31 32 33 35 37 38

IMPROVING SECURITY IN THE PLANNING, DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS Background on Improvements to FBO Procedures Committee Recommendations on Program Implementation, Management, and Administration

56

FUTURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT The Need for a Sustained Building Research and Development Program Within the State Department Techniques and Methods for Security Impact Assessments Site Design Elements

69 69

CONCLUSION

76

56 57

72 74


SUMMARY

1

1 Summary

During the course of its deliberations from January 1985 until the present, the Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings identified a number of factors, in addition to growing threats from terrorism and espionage, that will affect the design of embassies of the future. These factors include the increased use by the Foreign Service of computer-aided office systems and telecommunications capabilities, and increased pressure from other agencies of the U.S. government to be located in or on the same compound as embassy buildings. The delineation by the committee of these key areas of concern gave rise to a series of recommendations for the State Department's overseas construction programs. The committee urges that the State Department integrate these recommendations with a new set of comprehensive design guidance documents to be used by the architects, engineers, and others who will design new embassy buildings. Table 1-1, which appears on page 3, summarizes the recommendations developed by the committee during its deliberations. Briefly, the committee recommends that the State Department adopt a process of thorough and regular security impact assessments. Such a process would begin at the earliest stages of project conception and run throughout the life cycle of the embassy building, serving as the basis for designed responses to actual and perceived security threats. The committee also recommends: • rigorous new procedures, guidelines, and criteria for the identification and evaluation of sites for future embassy buildings,


SUMMARY

•

•

•

•

•

2

taking into account a full range of security considerations and integrating them with other aspects of site development; security-conscious site planning and design guidelines to ensure that maximum advantage is taken of the protection that can be afforded by site size, perimeter access controls, and landscape planning; revised guidelines for the location and arrangement of functional areas within embassy buildings to ensure that the most vital and sensitive aspects of foreign operations are afforded maximum protection from threats of takeover and espionage; new guidelines and criteria for the protection of electrical, mechanical, and communications systems within buildings and for the use of stateof-the-art security and access-control systems as complements to security-conscious building design; changes in current State Department practices and procedures in such areas as capital construction program management, the selection and management of architects, engineers, and construction contractors, and the management of information about foreign buildings; and an ongoing building research and development program within the State Department, directed in part toward the improvement of physical and technical security in embassy buildings.

The committee has continued its efforts on behalf of the State Department through the middle of September 1986, focusing on aspects of the implementation of its recommendations and on research into several areas of special technical concern.


SUMMARY

3

TABLE 1-1 Summary of Committee Recommendations No.

Subject

Page

Site Evaluation and Selection 1

Site selection criteria and procedures A comprehensive, systematic approach should be developed to identify and synthesize the factors important to embassy sitings, including site developability, security, communications, and cost criteria. The approach should entail three phases: project definition, site generation, and site evaluation. The committee's site selection process and methodology should be used as the basis for development of a site selection field manual for the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) siting teams.

38

2

Site size and perimeter standoff distances The State Department should use the full extent of its negotiating abilities (including the authorities of the Foreign Missions Act) to secure sites large enough to implement a mandatory setback distance for all embassy buildings. For those few sites on which this requirement cannot be achieved but that are otherwise desirable, a written waiver of the requirement can be issued by the Under Secretary for Management.

39

3

Prescreening of sites Before formal site selection begins, FBO should work with the post staff—if necessary, by temporarily assigning personnel there—to ensure that sufficient information on potential sites has been assembled for the site selection team.

40

4

Advance preparation for site selection After final candidate sites have been identified, the post (under the direction of the FBO professional temporarily assigned to it) should assemble detailed information on each site. This information should be available to and should be reviewed by the site selection team prior to its visit.

41


SUMMARY

4

5

Site selection team One or more permanent site selection teams should be formed with expertise in architecture, landscape planning and engineering, physical and technical security, communications, cost engineering, local foreign language negotiations, and political and diplomatic relations.

41

6

Adjacent land purchase The State Department should consider purchasing the land adjacent to a proposed U.S. embassy site when the type of future development planned for that land cannot currently be determined but might potentially be unsatisfactory.

42

Site Planning and Design 7

Site security analysis guidelines FBO should immediately adopt and implement a site security analysis, to be conducted directly after site selection, as the basis for site planning and design decisions.

43

8

Site security planning guidelines FBO should immediately adopt and implement a site planning process that emphasizes security and that is conducted concurrently with the functional analysis of the building program.

43

9

Site security design guidelines FBO should immediately adopt and implement security design guidelines for all major site elements on the perimeter or within the embassy grounds.

44

10

Site perimeter The site perimeter should be designed to protect embassy facilities from standoff or drive-by attacks and from thrown explosives; it should also detect (through the use of detection devices) and delay intruders and/or vehicles attempting forcible entry.

44


SUMMARY

5

11

Site access points An embassy site should have only two vehicular access points: ceremonial and service. Vehicular and pedestrian, as well as employee and visitor, access points should be separate. Site access points also should be designed to provide inspection capabilities.

44

12

Onsite circulation and parking Onsite vehicular circulation and parking should be restricted to the greatest degree possible. Any vehicle that does enter the site should be thoroughly searched.

45

Architectural Programming and Planning 13

Chancery building program modifications FBO should revise the existing chancery building program guidance in accordance with the committee's detailed recommendations and with accepted principles of functional zoning, adjacencies, and separation.

46

14

Designation of blast and arson risk areas and containment of effects Those embassy areas designated as areas of risk with respect to bombings and deliberately set fires should be designed to resist and contain the effects of such incidents.

49

15

Secure areas and safe havens Two separate, distinct protective areas should be designated in different locations of future embassy buildings.

49

16

Separation of hazardous occupancies All hazardous occupancies or materials, such as heavy building maintenance activities, furniture storage, automobile repair facilities, fuel storage, and paint shops and storage, should be housed in separate fire-rated compartments.

49


SUMMARY

6

Architectural and Structural System 17

Protection of exterior walls and openings

50

18

Protection of exterior walls and openings

50

Building Service and Security Systems 19

Protection of systems and equipment All building service equipment and distribution networks should be contained in areas that are secured from unauthorized access and that provide clear separations between those elements to be accessed only by cleared U.S. citizens and those that can be accessible to foreign nationals or others without clearances.

51

20

Protection of power, waste, water supply, and communications lines

52

21

Site self-sufficiency Sites should be self-sufficient with respect to essential building services such as emergency power and water, including that for fire suppression.

53

22

Monitoring and control Embassy services and security control and monitoring systems should be integrated and simplified, with particular consideration given to their human resources requirements (including ergonomic design of command and control stations).

53

Program Implementation, Management, and Administration 23

Design criteria format FBO should develop a more cohesive, fully integrated set of design manuals and guidelines that are stated in performance terms whenever possible and that convey clearly the specific requirements of FBO. Mandatory training in these guidelines and security brief ings should also be developed and provided to all professionals rendering design services to FBO.

57


SUMMARY

7

24

Integrated data base To manage its major program of new embassy construction as effectively as possible, FBO should establish an integrated data base (that is, one that collects information during the entire life cycle of an embassy building).

58

25

Space programming FBO should institute a structured procedure for space programming that will accurately reflect current and anticipated embassy needs and that will incorporate the security and personnel considerations and the functional requirements unique to this building type.

58

26

Standardized components and large-scale procurement FBO should explore the opportunities that may result from the standardized design and large-scale procurement of selected embassy building components and systems, which are made possible by the scope of the Inman Panel recommendations.

60

27

Procurement of architectural and engineering services FBO should institute changes in its procedures for the procurement of architectural and engineering services to incorporate an expanded Architectural Advisory Panel and modifications to the preselection criteria to recognize security design capability and previous State Department experience.

61

28

Program management The State Department, to ensure uniform, effective, and efficient management of the total new embassy construction program recommended by the Inman Panel, should implement a project management program centralized in Washington, D.C., that will direct a building project from inception through occupancy of all facilities.

62


SUMMARY

8

29

Project administration Within the overall program management structure, the State Department should develop a centralized project administration procedure that assigns responsibility and control for the duration of each project to one Washington-based individual.

63

30

Security aspects of procurement Drawings and documentation related to the bidding, award, and construction processes should be circulated on a restricted basis, and consideration should be given to using, whenever possible, U.S. contractors and subcontractors who hold appropriate security clearances.

64

31

Cost considerations Steps should be taken immediately to gather raw cost data for review, refinement, and assembly into a format suitable for budgeting and subsequent financial management. Also, cost models should be developed for various embassy types, value management studies should be an integral part of the overall design process, and value incentive clauses should be included in embassy construction contracts.

65

32

Building operation and maintenance Operating and maintenance manuals for building and security systems should be required project deliverables, as should manuals detailing the intended use of the building under emergency conditions. Service for building and security systems should be provided by regional maintenance staffs (consisting of U.S. cleared personnel) that have been established for that purpose.

66


SUMMARY

9

33

Postoccupancy evaluation All new embassies, after at least one year of occupancy, should be evaluated for a series of factors that are designed to measure aspects of a building's performance. Feedback from these evaluations should be used to improve design criteria.

67

34

Building information management systems FBO should develop a building information system that tracks the flow of important construction data throughout the design and construction process. After construction is completed, record drawings of the embassy should be prepared and updated as changes occur during the life of the building.

68

Future Research and Development 35

Ongoing research program FBO should fund and administer ongoing research and development activities directed toward the improvement of existing security-related design methods and criteria. An outgrowth of such activities should be integrated technical design requirements, translated into performance criteria that can be implemented in practical terms by design professionals.

70

36

Security impact assessment development The State Department's research and development activities should concentrate in part on the development and implementation of formal techniques and methods for evaluating and reporting on the securityrelated aspects of future embassy buildings throughout the facility life cycle.

72

37

Physical elements for site security FBO should sponsor or conduct an ongoing research and development program specifically directed toward testing the effectiveness of site design elements against the security threats of greatest concern to embassies.

74

About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. SUMMARY 10

38 Development of new enclosure systems 75

39 Development of door and window systems 75



11

2 The Committee's Charge

Over the past decade, U.S. embassy buildings throughout the world have increasingly become the target of terrorist acts, raising concerns about the safety of U.S. personnel and information abroad. In response to recent acts of violence, the U.S. Congress, by means of a supplemental appropriation, supported efforts launched by the State Department's Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) to carry out an advanced physical and technical research program. The appropriation measure stated: The goal of this program is to design the model embassy that will meet security, operational and program requirements and will serve as the prototype for worldwide application. The emphasis will be on research and development that will establish a benchmark of minimum requirements which all future embassy designs will follow as well as setting forth criteria for site identification. To carry out this charge, the Assistant Secretary of State for Administration turned to the National Research Council's Building Research Board (BRB). In an early planning meeting, he elaborated on the State Department's need for a program that would involve a fundamental reconsideration of embassy design and construction, incorporating security requirements into all aspects of building design. Agreement was reached on the nature of this program, and FBO then requested, and subsequently contracted for, the advice and assistance of a BRB advisory committee. The BRB committee was to develop “a research and development program intended to . . . enable FBO to find the most effective ways to assure that an embassy building and its immediate



12

environment can support the performance of the post's representational, operational and program functions in a secure manner.” The contract that was drawn between the State Department and the National Research Council formalizes this charge and reads, in part: “The BRB committee will develop a research agenda to provide the knowledge base needed for design criteria, methods of testing, and prototype design for facilities that enable the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations to obtain an environment that will support the performance of program functions in a secure manner abroad.” Although the original impetus for the committee's activities was terrorism and threats to the safety of Foreign Service personnel, recent events have demonstrated that potential threats exist also to the vital information produced, handled, and stored within embassies. Consequently, the committee has included a wide range of potential security threats within its scope of concerns. Early in the course of its work, the committee concluded that it could best render advice and assistance to the State Department by providing recommendations for a new set of design guidelines, requirements, and criteria. The security implications of the following elements of the building process were considered by the committee: • • • • • •

selection of design professionals; building programming and space planning; site selection and site design; architectural and structural design; building service systems and fire safety design; and building operation and maintenance.

The design guidelines and criteria contained in this report and its appendixes are based on clearly defined performance objectives and on currently available scientific and technical knowledge. When adopted by FBO and integrated with its design criteria manuals, the committee believes these criteria and guidelines will, as requested by Congress, provide a basis for the development and evaluation of new embassy building prototypes. Such guidelines and criteria should also help to ensure that the prototypes will perform as intended but will remain open to the potential for design innovation.



13

The committee interpreted its charge to include nearly all aspects of the security of future U.S. embassy buildings.* It did not interpret its charge as including recommendations on the present or future composition of a U.S. Foreign Service mission; that is, which agencies of what size and function should or should not be housed in FBO-constructed facilities. The committee assumes that such determinations are a product of U.S. government policy and that all functions and personnel under the chief of mission will be considered equally from a security standpoint. Cost implications of the committee's recommendations have been addressed only in general terms, in part because accurate, reliable cost estimation data for building security are limited. In addition, some of the recommendations that have been developed represent new and innovative approaches for which costs may be difficult to estimate. The committee believes that the State Department is in the best position to make cost determinations and that methods can be devised to resolve the estimation problems noted above. Midway in the committee's works in June 1985, the report of the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security was issued. (The panel was chaired by Admiral Bobby R. Inman, USN [Ret.], and is hereinafter referred to as the Inman Panel.) The Inman Panel recommended that a substantial building program be undertaken to “correct the security deficiencies of office buildings of the Department of State and the other foreign affairs agencies abroad.” It also identified a total of 126 buildings that it considered to be in need of major security upgrading or total replacement. The urgency of these recommendations has moved the scope of the committee's work from the embassy of the distaut future to the embassy of the immediate future. In addition, the size of the building program proposed by the Inman Panel has led the committee, at the request of the State Department, to make organizational and procedural recommendations to help ensure that its other recommendations can be implemented in a large-scale special program, as well as in FBO's annual capital programs.

*For the purposes of its work and for this report, the committee's definition of embassy building includes chanceries, consulates, and all other buildings (excluding residences) constructed by FBO or for which the State Department is responsible, regardless of the affiliation of the tenant. The term also includes the land on which these facilities are located and any factors or features external to the land or property that bear on the secure performance of the embassy's business.


THE COMMITTEE'S WORK APPROACH

14

3 The Committee's Work Approach

COMMITTEE STRUCTURE Much of the committee's work was carried out through subcommittees assigned to areas of special concern, a structure that was adopted to use to the maximum extent possible the variety of skills of the committee's members. Each subcommittee is described below; the information provided includes its membership, its areas of responsibility, and the affiliations of the federal agency liaison representatives to the committee. (The role of the federal representatives is described later in this chapter.) Subcommittee 1: Overview and Integration Charge: To review and oversee the work of all other subcommittees; to undertake study of such special matters as may from time to time arise out of subcommittee work and from the deliberations of the committee as a whole; to study the administration of design and construction programs of the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) and to recommend improvements; and to examine the cost and procurement aspects of the committee's recommendations. Members: David R. Dibner (committee and subcommittee chair), Robert C. Brewster, Brian M. Jenkins, Michael R. Morris (cost control and procurement aspects) Federal agency liaison representatives: None



15

Subcommittee 2: Site Security Considerations Charge: To assess current methods and criteria for the selection of new embassy sites; to recommend improvements in the site selection process that enhance security and other considerations; to identify areas where research is needed to improve the security of embassy sites; to monitor the conduct of committee-sponsored research work in these areas; and to develop securityrelated planning and design criteria for new embassy sites. Members: Christopher Degenhardt (subcommittee chair), Michael Morris Federal agency liaison representatives: Robert Burke and Bart Rinehart (Smithsonian Institution), Robert Furlong (U.S. Air Force), William McCollough (State Department) Subcommittee 3: Building Structure, Envelope, Fenestration, and Internal Functional Relationships Charge: To review existing criteria and guidelines related to building structural, envelope, and fenestration systems and to recommend modifications where appropriate, initiating and overseeing research as necessary; to review existing building programming guidance with respect to internal functional relationships and adjacencies, recommending changes where appropriate; and to consider the potential implications of security considerations for architectural form and building planning. Members: Stuart L. Knoop (subcommittee chair), Leslie E. Robertson, Seymour A. Bortz Federal agency liaison representatives: Michael Yachnis (Naval Facilities Engineering Command), Donald B. Baldwin (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Samuel E. Duncan (Veterans Administration), Peter E. Gurvin (State Department) Subcommittee 4: Criteria for the Design of Service and Security Systems for Future U.S. Embassy Buildings Charge: To review all existing FBO design criteria related to access control, security monitoring, and building service systems;



16

to identify security considerations related to building service systems; and to develop needed additional security-related design criteria related to the above. Members: Richard T. Baum (subcommittee chair), Richard A. Day, John C. Pignato Federal agency liaison representative: John Moyer (General Services Administration) Subcommittee 5: Potential Threats to the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings Charge: To develop for use by the committee as a whole, and as an element in the final report, a characterization of potential threats to the security of future U.S. embassy buildings, based to the extent possible on knowledge gained from past experience and available general intelligence; to recommend a committee position, to be communicated to the State Department, on future security threats; and to respond to and challenge design criteria recommendations emerging from the other subcommittees. Members: Brian M. Jenkins (subcommittee chair), Richard A. Day, John C. Pignato Federal agency liaison representatives: John Moyer (General Services Administration), Donald B. Baldwin (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) FEDERAL AGENCY LIAISON REPRESENTATIVES One of the committee's most valuable resources was the active participation of its federal agency liaison representatives. Many government agencies must address security concerns in the design of their buildings; and although such concerns are not identical to those of the State Department, nevertheless shed light on the potential of the federal building process to respond to unique building needs. The federal agency liaison representatives to the committee contributed knowledge from other areas of the government community and reported on research that is directly applicable to the committee's work, including the following: • Naval Facilities Engineering Command and Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory—structural design;



17

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—security and survivability planning for sensitive installations and facilities; • U.S. Air Force—physical security planning and design; • Veterans Administration—contract administration and security design criteria development; • National Bureau of Standards—structural design and life safety; • Smithsonian Institution—security planning and management for public buildings; • U.S. Postal Service—contraband detection and parcel management; and • General Services Administration—security planning, criteria development, and design and management for public buildings. THE STUDY PROCESS Each subcommittee began its work with an extensive review of existing FBO design criteria and other State Department publications, including the following: Chancery Building Program; Planning Procedures and Engineering Criteria; Fire Protection Design Criteria; Lock Hardware and Barrier Standards;* and various addenda provided by the State Department's Office of Security and Office of Communications, among others. During the course of the committee's work, the State Department also made available various reports that were applicable to the current effort but that had been prepared under separate contracts. To provide a centralized technical reference collection, the staff of the Building Research Board assembled the materials noted above and other relevant reference matter: reports, criteria, and documents from other federal agencies, and security directories, manuals, handbooks, and pertinent documents available in the general literature. This collection gave the committee some perspective on the current state of the art with regard to building design for security and enabled it to identify: (a) those provisions

* U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations, Chancery Building Program (January 1982); U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations, Planning Procedures and Engineering Criteria (October 1983); U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations, Fire Protection Design Criteria (March 1981); U.S. Department of State, Office of Security, Lock Hardware and Barrier Standards (December 1983).



18

within existing FBO design criteria that are in need of modification to meet security requirements; and (b) needed provisions not presently contained in these design criteria. The full committee met eight times during the course of the study to further define and meet its objectives and to integrate the work of the various subcommittees, leading to the drafting of this report. The subcommittees met approximately twice as often as the full committee. The following is a chronology of committee meetings and a brief summary of the work that was accomplished: • On November 15, 1984, the BRB invited interested guests to be briefed by senior State Department officials on the department's building program and their security concerns regarding building design. The advisory committee composition and study plan were discussed. • On December 12, 1984, the first full committee meeting was held. The National Research Council policy for the selection of committee members—that is, seeking a proper balance of interests and biases— was discussed. The committee received an update on the State Department's building program and was briefed by committee member experts on world terrorism trends and the blast resistance of structures. • On January 16-17, 1985, the full committee and subcommittees met to discuss the possible classification of the final report and to receive further background on the State Department's Chancery Building Program and Fire Protection Criteria documents. At this meeting the concept of performance criteria was adopted by the committee as the approach for developing guidelines and criteria. • At the March 15, 1985, meeting, the major subject of discussion was the preliminary report of the Inman Panel, in particular the implications of its recommendation for a large building program. Subcommittees reported on their progress, and a series of issues was identified as being of common interest to all members. • In its meeting of May 8, 1985, the committee outlined the tasks required of various consultants and contractors and discussed the overall structure and scope of planned project documents. An update on threat characterizations was presented. At this meeting the committee focused its efforts on security-related aspects of design criteria.



19

• On July 18, 1985, the committee heard detailed briefings from one of its major consultants, the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Foreign Buildings Operations described to the committee the implications of the Inman Panel recommendations on FBO operations. • On September 18, 1985, the committee reviewed the draft outline of the final report and heard reports on the progress of the various subcommittees. The committee received a detailed briefing on vehicle bomb incidents worldwide and moved toward definition of bombrelated threats. • In October 1985, a steering group was formed to oversee development of the committee's draft final report. The steering group included all members of subcommittee 1 and the chairmen of all other subcommittees. The draft final report was reviewed first by the steering group, acting on behalf of the committee as a whole; it was then circulated for additional review and comment by the entire committee. • On November 21, 1985, the last full committee meeting was held to review and approve the draft report, to assess the status of other documents in preparation by the various subcommittees, and to discuss future activities. The members of the Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings brought to their efforts a broad base of experience and familiarity with embassy design. Prior to the formation of the committee, many embassies had been visited, on a professional basis, by a number of committee members acting in other capacities and by BRB staff. In addition, after the formation of the committee, the committee members and staff made official visits abroad to the following U.S. posts: • • • •

Cairo, Athens, and Lisbon (March 1985); Vienna (August 1985); Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul (August 1985); and Bonn and Paris (August 1985).

On the visit to Turkey, which was made at the request of the State Department, committee members and BRB staff joined a site selection team that was charged with evaluating sites for a replacement embassy in Ankara and replacement consulates in Izmir and Istanbul. This visit yielded findings specific to the site selection process and was especially valuable in the preparation of the report of the subcommittee on site security considerations.



20

The committee also had the benefit of extensive briefings by State Department personnel and by personnel from other agencies with experience in security and building design. In addition, these briefings included the following: • interviews with State Department staff from the Office of Communications, the Office of Security, and the Fire Protection, Interior Design, and Architecture divisions of FBO; • briefing on site design measures by the Mobil Oil Corporation; • guidance on fire protection by staff from the National Bureau of Standards, Center for Fire Research; • briefings from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Research Laboratory; • briefing from a State Department contractor regarding work on designing windows; and • briefing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory on advanced technical research and development counterterrorism programs. These briefings were invaluable to the committee in enhancing its understanding of certain technical issues and in ensuring that it had been made aware of the most up-to-date information available through public and private channels.


FORCES THAT WILL SHAPE EMBASSIES OF THE FUTURE

21

4 Forces that Will Shape Embassies of the Future During its studies, the committee identified several distinct factors that it believes will increasingly influence the physical settings within which the diplomatic, consular, and other public business of the United States abroad is conducted. All of the influences noted below (and discussed in more detail later in this chapter) are already being felt at State Department posts throughout the world: • the concentration and colocation of user agencies within embassy buildings and compounds; • the changing nature of the Foreign Service and the proliferation of classified and unclassified electronic information management systems; • the growth in the scope and seriousness of terrorism, espionage, and sabotage; and • the need for appropriate architectural expressions of the U.S. government presence abroad. Despite an awareness of these factors, currently there is no unified view of or statement about the broader embassy design and construction context, of which the need for enhanced security forms only a part. Future embassy buildings must fit into this context, but although periodic updates and memoranda have been issued over the past year, the committee found little evidence of a formal reconsideration of design and construction context issues. In fact, the basic design guidelines and criteria now used by the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) to instruct architects and engineers remain essentially unchanged from those



22

in use eight years ago.* And these criteria and guidelines are often deficient and unresponsive to technical developments in many areas of building design and constructions, whether directly related to security or not. The State Department lacks—and needs—a clear, integrated, and wellcoordinated sense of direction in response to the range of factors that will shape its facilities in the future. There is not, to the committee's knowledge, a general statement about the requirements that future embassy buildings must satisfy. The need for a clear sense of direction in this area is particularly urgent in light of the large construction program that was recommended by the Inman Panel and that is now being implemented by the department.† The conclusion that a clear sense of direction is lacking in the State Department's building efforts is further reinforced by an examination of the programs currently under way to upgrade various physical facilities within existing embassies, incorporate new equipment, and afford enhanced physical security. For example, there is a vigorous program within the State Department that is directed toward the implementation of new generations of automated office equipment and electronic information handling systems; this effort is taking place, however, without sufficient regard for the ways in which buildings themselves could be altered to accommodate and ease the transition to such systems. Similarly, intensive efforts are being made to upgrade physical and electronic security but, understandably, without sufficient consideration of the ways in which such improvements might relate to, support, or impede future building functional needs. There can be no doubt that conscientious efforts are being made by the State Department in these and other areas. It is important and fair to state, however, that such efforts to date are largely ad hoc responses to the urgency of current situations and as such lack the coordinated guidance recommended above.†

* Note added by the committee in September 1986: should read “four years ago.” † Note added by the committee to report in September 1986: In its final meeting of September 18, 1986, the committee recognized that substantial progress had been made in this area by the State Department.



23

The work of this committee, although directed principally toward questions of security, has afforded it an opportunity to consider the broader context within which security must be provided and to develop a description of those factors that will combine to influence the shape of embassies of the future. These descriptions are presented in the sections that follow. Articulating the nature of these influences and considering how they relate to one another should, in turn, help to establish more coherent attitudes about the nature of the State Department's future buildings. By serving as the basis for a new set of security-conscious building design criteria, an understanding of these forces should help to ensure that future embassy buildings are responsive to new influences by design, rather than by coincidence or by change. THE CONCENTRATION AND COLOCATION OF USER AGENCIES WITHIN THE EMBASSY AND COMPOUND For a variety of reasons—and not least because of increasing threats worldwide to the security of official Americans abroad—there is increasing interest among government agencies that operate overseas in being physically a part of the embassy chancery or compound. There is a general sense that U.S. citizens working abroad on behalf of the federal government will be safer from the consequences of mob violence, terrorist attack, and other potentially harmful events by being within the protective umbrella of the embassy compound. Some of these agencies have traditionally sought to be in locations and facilities that were distinct from consular and diplomatic buildings and sites, in part because they saw such separations as beneficial to the accomplishment of their missions. Today, however, and for the foreseeable future, it is likely that pressures will mount on foreign sites and buildings operated by the State Department to house an ever greater number of diverse official U.S. functions, both sensitive and nonsensitive. As one consequence of these circumstances, there is likely to be a general increase in the size of the overseas facilities that fall under the State Department's stewardship. In Chapter 7, this report addresses changes that are needed in the means by which space requirements for new construction are developed and kept current.



24

Moreover, because of the increase in the number of agencies housed on the embassy compound, it is likely that there will also be an increase in the number of casual and scheduled visitors to embassy buildings. Many of these visitors will simply be requesting information or participating in recreational or public events and will not be conducting official business. (This is, in fact, already the case at many posts; a wide variety of informational and other essentially nondiplomatic functions are found at both large and small facilities.) These added burdens will continue to complicate and intensify the security challenges facing the State Department, especially if it assumes widened responsibility for the security of other official and nonofficial U.S. citizens overseas. Although some committee members have expressed concern over the possible negative security consequences of the apparent growth of the U.S. government presence abroad, this committee does not believe itself in a position to do more than note that the trend of such growth over the past decade seems destined to continue for the foreseeable future and that it will place ever greater demands on State Department buildings and grounds. Future facility plans should be developed with the expectation that they will need to accommodate more non-State Department user agencies and personnel, many of which will bring increased unofficial traffic into the area if only by increasing the size of the mission community. In Chapter 6, this report recommends changes in the approaches taken in planning the physical relationships among the various activities and functions that are likely to be a part of future embassy compounds. Although this committee did not consider in depth the possibility of including housing for Foreign Service personnel and dependents on future compounds, circumstances may dictate serious consideration by the State Department of including such housing wherever possible. The same is likely to be true with respect to housing provided for Marine Security Guard detachments. THE PROLIFERATION OF ELECTRONIC INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Consistent with developments in practically all aspects of government, business, academic, and professional life, the Foreign Service and the whole foreign policy apparatus of the United States



25

is relying increasingly on electronic systems for storage, analysis, and communication of all sorts of information and data. Analysts for economic, political, commercial, agricultural, military, and other affairs who operate within the embassy environment already are beginning to rely on these systems and will continue to do so at a rapidly increasing pace. And the curricula being followed in universities by persons entering these fields are increasingly concerned with computer-based data processing. Aggressive programs are already in place within the State Department to provide suitable field opportunities for these individuals, and the Department is rapidly coming to depend on its telecommunications capabilities to reach into the remotest regions of the world. In addition, the clerical and administrative aspects of the Foreign Service and overseas State Department operations, from personnel and budget management to consular affairs and word processing, involve the use of electronic equipment and systems that place new demands on—and pose new security challenges for—embassy buildings. Embassy buildings, then, share a common requirement with other types of buildings being constructed today: They are expected to provide an infrastructure suitable for the support of currently available and rapidly changing automated office and telecommunications systems (as well as some that are on the near horizon). Thus, embassy buildings must be designed to accommodate complicated and frequently changing networks of wires and cables to service work stations and other data processing facilities. In short, embassies must follow the already established pattern for what have been called “intelligent” or “smart” buildings, which provide the means to accommodate expanding electronic requirements. THE GROWTH IN INCIDENTS OF TERRORISM, ESPIONAGE, AND SABOTAGE A significant portion of the committee's efforts has been directed toward identifying and understanding the dimensions of threats from terrorism, espionage, sabotage, and other sources of hostility in terms of their effects on buildings. The committee has not sought, nor have others tried on its behalf, to identify specific locations, times, or types of threats, or to engage the committee in activities that are properly within the domains of



26

the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies. Yet the committee has had access to such information, both classified and unclassified, and to analytical material related to past incidents directed against the United States and allied interests. Its findings and recommendations, therefore, have been based on and reflect the seriousness of these data. Threats to the security of official U.S. personnel and information have increased. In no area of the world are the interests of the United States and the safety of its citizens immune from the threats of terrorism, espionage, and other hostile acts. Every indication suggests that these threats will continue and probably increase and intensify in the years ahead. It is certain also that official U.S. government policy, developed at the highest levels, is committed to reducing as much as possible the threat of harm from terrorism and mob action to U.S. citizens abroad, and to minimizing the consequences of such attacks that do happen. Indeed, the charge to this committee grows directly out of this commitment. There is no question that the design of future U.S. embassy buildings will be affected by both perceived and actual terrorist threats. Yet, granting and even underscoring the importance of taking such steps as are possible to prevent a recurrence of the tragic events at State Department posts in the 1970s and 1980s, three statements of fundamental importance must be made: 1.

Diplomatic relations rest on the premise that the ultimate responsibility for the safety and well-being of Foreign Service personnel lies with the host country and its military and law enforcement agencies. In the event of a breakdown of the host country's willingness or ability to afford such protection, the most that can be expected of a building and of the security personnel assigned to protect it is some delay in the capture of occupants and, therefore, more time to effect a resolution of the hostilities or, in the extreme case, rescue or evacuation. 2. Buildings that are designed for the conduct of official business and for the representation and support of the United States abroad are not and cannot be perceived as fortresses. Although they should afford as much protection from hostile attack as is reasonably possible, they must still fulfill the basic functional and symbolic purposes for which they are intended. This entails architectural excellence and a measure of openness that cannot be



27

compromised without a consequent loss in character and the projection of an undesirable image. 3. Terrorism is a dynamic phenomenon, and the means employed by determined adversaries will continue to shift and escalate in response to obstacles, resources, opportunities, and motives. No security provisions or systems and, especially as related to this report, no building can be expected to thwart every kind of attack. The most that can be expected is that all reasonable steps will be taken to provide measures to counter and delay known and reasonably anticipated threats. Using historical records and other resources placed at its disposal, this committee has identified and detailed the characteristics of a broad spectrum of both known and potential security threats. Because embassies and the personnel charged with their protection must respond to these threats (and probably to many that have yet to be identified), these characterizations have served as the basis for the committee's recommendations on security-related design criteria for future U.S. embassy buildings. APPROPRIATE ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSIONS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT PRESENCE ABROAD It is and will remain imperative that embassy buildings play a major role in conveying to others an appropriate impression and image of the United States. The embassy assumes this importance because it is the first and at times the only official contact that foreign nationals have with the United States. In the past, U.S. architects and engineers have produced several generations of distinguished architecture in the nation's official buildings abroad. In the main these buildings have been consistent with the principles that the United States, as a leading democracy and global power, should express in the world. Reflecting these concerns, the FBO has had, since 1954, a written statement of its design philosophy, which reads in its entirety as follows: Facilities shall be provided in an architectural form representative of the United States, expressing such qualities as dignity, strength, and neighborly sympathy. These facilities should create good will because of their excellent architectural design, and their appropriateness to the site and country. Designs must adhere to established construction practice and require maximum utilization of United States materials, methods and equipment of proven dependability. Designs should also describe buildings economical to



28

construct, operate and maintain. Maximum consideration must be given to including in the buildings features providing for the greatest possible protection and safety for the people using the buildings. As evidenced by this statement, FBO places strong emphasis on the aesthetic aspects of embassy buildings. And in the past, such a design emphasis was reasonable. Aesthetic considerations in many instances were permitted to preempt security concerns in a world in which the U.S. presence abroad was seldom threatened or challenged. But the recent growth of anti-U.S. terrorism must cause the State Department to reevaluate its position. To its commitment to produce buildings of aesthetic excellence and appropriate design must be added a recognition of the need for increased security requirements for new and existing embassy buildings. The committee supports the State Department's broadened areas of emphasis and concurs with its expressed determination to balance aesthetic excellence with increased security for embassy personnel, facilities, and information.


COMMITTEE FINDINGS: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS

29

5 Committee Findings: Issues and Challenges in the Design, Construction, and Management of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings The broad trends and general influences identified in Chapter 4 indicate that future U.S. embassy buildings must be designed to satisfy a variety of requirements and fulfill a number of objectives. These requirements and objectives are presented below in the form of committee findings. A brief discussion of each finding follows, in which the reader may be directed for more detail to other chapters in this report. CHANGES IN CURRENT FBO PROCESSES AND PRACTICES Finding: Enhancing the security of U.S. embassy buildings overseas will require changes in certain practices within the State Department that relate to the planning of new buildings and to the management of building design, construction, and maintenance. Discussion: The committee has concluded that a number of security concerns and opportunities for improvement relate directly to State Department practices in managing and administering the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of its buildings. The subjects encompassed by this finding include the following: • the manner in which space needs are identified and recorded;



30

• identification and evaluation of the qualifications of professional design firms to render embassy design and construction services; • formulation and implementation of security-related design criteria; • evaluation of contractors and procurement procedures; and • inspection and evaluation of buildings during construction and after occupancy. Existing State Department concerns in these areas were intensified by the release of the Inman Panel report and the prospect of a greatly increased construction program within FBO. A subsequent letter to the committee chairman from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Foreign Buildings Operations encouraged the committee to consider and recommend organizational changes. The committee took up this challenge and developed detailed and specific recommendations concerning changes that should be implemented in current and planned FBO procedures. THE PRIME IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING SITES Finding: The committee recognizes that building site size and site design measures alone cannot provide all the security necessary for an embassy and should not be treated in isolation of building design; nevertheless, site considerations represent the single most important physical design aspect of protecting an embassy from security threats. Sites for future U.S. embassy buildings should be identified, evaluated, selected, and designed with adequate and systematic consideration of security implications. In addition, the State Department must seek larger sites for the several reasons discussed in this report. Discussion: The importance to security of sites for U.S. embassy buildings that are correctly chosen, planned, and designed cannot be overstated. The consequences of choosing a particular site for a future embassy building will be far-reaching and long-lasting; where buildings can be and usually are changed over time—and can even be replaced or relocated on a site if necessary—the site itself is not easily changed, and its security shortcomings, if severe and/or extensive, may be difficult to overcome. In nearly every respect, then, against virtually every security threat, proper selection and treatment of the site are the first,



31

the most effective, and often the least expensive of the steps that can be taken to enhance security and to counter a wide range of threats. This suggests that the site selection process should be carried out with the greatest of care. Current State Department guidelines indicate that the benefits of increased site size and greater “setback” or “standoff” distances between embassy buildings and surrounding areas are recognized but are not fully exploited. Some discussions with the State Department have centered on the present requirement, which has been imposed by the Office of Security. The requirement calls for a minimum standoff distance between occupied buildings and a secure site perimeter (that is, a continuous line beyond which unauthorized vehicles, even when set on a course of destructive ramming, cannot progress without being arrested or disabled). The committee considers this setback requirement to be an acceptable minimum for a number of reasons. Greater setback distances offer clear advantages in enhancing aspects of security, improving opportunities for desirable functional zoning, and maximizing surveillance and control of visitors and intruders. However, the committee also recognizes that the minimum setback will not be achievable in some cases, and it has recommended a waiver procedure. The primary importance of site characteristics to the security of an embassy building led this committee to identify substantial and systematic improvements that are needed in the means and methods by which candidate sites for future embassy buildings are identified, evaluated, and selected. The committtee has also recommended much closer links among the processes of building programming, site selection, and site design. Chapter 6 recommends new criteria for site selection and design and outlines procedures that should be introduced to improve the State Department's site acquisition efforts. CLEAR PHYSICAL SEPARATION OF SENSITIVE AND LESS SENSITIVE CHANCERY BUILDING AREAS Finding: Future embassy buildings will be required to provide distinct, highly secure, and easily respected physical separations between the following work areas: those that are used for the conduct of classified and sensitive functions and, therefore, the



32

handling and storage of sensitive and classified information, accessible only to U.S. citizens with appropriate security clearances; and those areas in which the public business of the embassy is conducted and that therefore are accessible to foreign national employees and the public. Discussion: The information handled by U.S. government officials working abroad within the State Department is often sensitive and frequently bears security classifications. The amount of information that is designated as sensitive is growing and is likely to continue to grow. For this reason, and because such treatment will both ease and reduce the expense of implementing other security-related measures, the committee considers it necessary for future U.S. embassy buildings to provide clear and inviolable lines of physical demarcation between areas accessible only to cleared U.S. citizens (and, on occasion, to others under appropriate escort) and those areas accessible to other personnel and visitors. For the same reason, the committee has concluded that stronger efforts must be made to zone and create dedicated physical compartments for distinct functions within embassy buildings and compounds. Such efforts may include functional zoning and physical compartmentalization of building areas (and, in some cases, separate buildings on a single compound or even at a separate location). Whatever method is used, the objective remains the same: to separate the functions that generate large amounts of visitor traffic from those that require the greatest security and generate the least visitor traffic. This securityconscious zoning should also be extended to all building services and circulation systems. (For specific recommendations on the functional adjacencies and zoning relationships that should guide basic planning and design efforts, see Chapter 6 of this report.) THE NEED FOR BUILDING FLEXIBILITY AND EASE OF EXPANSION Finding: Future U.S. embassy building design must take into consideration the fact that the functions performed within them will be continually required to grow, shrink, and change in ways and at times that are not and cannot be anticipated during the original design and construction period.



33

Discussion: World affairs and the corresponding shifts that must occur in U.S. foreign policy can be and often are volatile and unpredictable. These shifts place great pressure on basic State Department post missions and on the embassy buildings that must accommodate them. There are many cases, some of them recent, in which the U.S. diplomatic posture toward a given country, or vice versa, has changed almost overnight. Such changes often mandate a greatly increased (or, in some cases, greatly decreased) official U.S. presence abroad and dramatic alternations in the size and character of the building(s) required to carry out a revised foreign policy mission. Even in those instances in which shifts in foreign relations and the U.S. foreign policy mission abroad are not dramatic or abrupt, there is a pervasive tendency within U.S. embassies toward almost continuous change, generally in the direction of expansion. This basic volatility directly affects building design and usually has an effect on security; the need for greater amounts of work space than originally anticipated leads to additions, expansions, extensions, remodelings, and other modifications whose security implications may not have been anticipated in the original design. Apart from asking necessary improvements in the processes of obtaining, communicating, and updating programmatic information for design, the State Department must also design facilities that are as flexible as possible and help ensure that designs and construction techniques are as amenable as is practical to possible future changes. BUILDING CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Finding: Future U.S. embassy buildings will rely increasingly on a wide variety of complex control, monitoring, annunciation, and management systems for such diverse purposes as security, communications, surveillance, personnel access control, environmental conditioning, equipment status monitoring and maintenance, fire safety, and other functions. These systems have potential security advantages, but they also carry some risks. Discussion: In most cases these systems will involve electronic computerbased devices and componentry. Although such complex systems make a clear contribution to security by extending human



34

capabilities, building designers should seek to avoid overreliance on such systems and should limit the use of complicated, delicate equipment. The committee's advice in this matter is based on the body of knowledge and experience accumulated by the professional disciplines that are concerned with the design of facilities involving continual surveillance and high security. The literature suggests that line-of-sight and direct visual and auditory surveillance are nearly always more effective than, and are generally preferable to, indirect or highly mediated forms of observation and status monitoring. To the extent that indirect systems are used, efforts should be made to integrate and simplify the apparatus required for their effective use. The committee recognizes the dedication of Marines who volunteer for embassy security duty and perform their duties even at the risk of danger to their lives. Without question, they constitute a valued and important element in the provision of security for U.S. embassies. The committee believes that the State Department should address those issues that are related to the roles of all security personnel, including the Marine Security Guards. A reconsideration or redefinition of the Marine Guard's role and responsibilities may be warranted.


DESIGN CRITERIA FOR A NEW GENERATION OF U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS

35

6 Design Criteria for a New Generation of U.S. Embassy Buildings In response to the challenge to implement the massive building program recommended by the Inman Panel, the U.S. State Department is poised to embark on the most ambitious and significant embassy construction program in its history. To carry out this program, the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) faces the prospect, over a seven-year period, of building and/ or reconstructing more embassy facilities than have been constructed abroad by the United States since the founding of the nation. The consequences of this building program will be profound and lasting for the Foreign Service, for U.S. foreign relations activities, and for the image of the United States in the world at large. And it is unlikely that the opportunities for improving embassy security that are inherent in such a program will again present themselves. Well-founded concerns about embassy vulnerability to terrorism and to espionage have created the support for a program of this expense and magnitude. Yet, apart from the clear and current need to make extraordinary efforts to protect U.S. embassies from threats to safety and security, there are reasons why careful scrutiny and thorough reconsideration should be given to questions of how the United States constructs its embassies abroad. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of this report identify the broad influences and challenges, encompassing considerations that extend well beyond security, that this committee believes will shape the requirements for embassies of the future. Despite this delineation, however, the committee does not call for or condone the construction of standardized or prototype embassy buildings in order to



36

satisfy such requirements as may evolve. Rather, embassy buildings must respond to the richness and diversity of the climates and geographical settings in which such buildings will exist. The design challenges posed by each embassy building are unique and formidable: An embassy is a building whose design must respect its context, wherever and whatever that may be; and yet it must also, in the best sense possible, represent the character and strengths of the United States. In addition, embassy buildings must satisfy a great number of complicated, technically challenging functional requirements, to which now must be added many that serve to enhance security. Early in its deliberations, the committee recognized that there can be no single or uniform set of architectural and engineering design responses to the myriad factors and requirements that are often unique in application to individual embassy projects. For this reason, the committee adopted two guiding principles for its work and for its recommendations to the State Department: • The overall approach to future embassy building design, construction, and management should be governed by a continuing process of security impact analysis, in which the factors unique to each particular setting and mission are clearly identified and thereby determine the basis of design. Although this committee has considered only securityrelated influences and factors, it is clear that other factors must also be considered and should be used, in conjunction with security considerations, to determine the final design of the facility.* • Design guidelines, criteria, and requirements imposed by the State Department should be formulated and evaluated in terms of desired performance attributes and not in terms of fixed, rigid, standardized, or uniform design solutions. This chapter and the two that follow present the recommendations that have evolved from the committee's work. This chapter details specific performance-based criteria and recommendations for security as related to the following: • evaluation and selection of sites for future embassy buildings;

* Among these other factors are a wide range of functional, cultural, and aesthetic considerations that are already routinely investigated and identified as part of the design professional's efforts.



37

• planning and design of sites; • desired functional layouts and adjacencies that should serve as the basis for the design of future embassy buildings; • properties that should be required of structural, envelope, and fenestration systems; and • properties and characteristics that should be required of building service and control systems. Chapter 7, which is concerned with the implementation of the committee's recommendations, elaborates on performance-based design criteria and recommends a generic format to be followed as FBO develops new guidance documentation for design professionals in meeting security and other requirements in future buildings. And in Chapter 8, the committee details its views on how a process for security impact assessment could be developed and carried out. It is important to note that the committee considers its proposed recommendations and design criteria to be minimum responses. For each specific embassy building, a security impact assessment can determine whether the nature of the potential threats facing a given facility may warrant the implementation of stronger security design measures. DEFINITION OF THE DESIGN THREAT The definition of the security threats confronting an embassy building in turn establishes the level of performance and protection that must be afforded by the building and the site in order to withstand such threats. The committee believes it is essential that the design professionals retained by FBO have a clear and unequivocal definition of the range of potential security threats against which embassy buildings are to be designed. Although formulating such a definition is a difficult and inexact undertaking at best, nevertheless, the committee is convinced that a base level can be determined. For this purpose, it has used historical records to characterize potential threats. Although threats to the security of embassy buildings are constantly changing and can, in some cases, be extraordinary, a standard, minimum base level of security must be provided at all posts. The committee recognizes that, by establishing a particular level of resistance in future embassy buildings, the State Department is also accepting a certain level of risk. These minimum



38

standards cannot defeat or deter all possible threats, and in some cases the gravity of the known or potential threats may warrant security measures that are more stringent than the minimum standards. The committee further recognizes that there is a distinction between the “maximum potential event” (as threats are sometimes defined in design criteria for military facilities) and practical design assumptions. The committee believes that, in making its recommendations and developing design criteria, it has made practical design assumptions that are based on an analysis of past incidents. It has not, however, attempted to predict or determine the greatest or most severe threat that could be posed for an embassy building. PERFORMANCE-BASED CRITERIA AND RECOMMENDATIONS Site Evaluation and Selection The proper location and design of sites is crucial not only to ensuring the security of future U.S. embassies but to virtually all aspects of the effective performance of embassy activities. In addition, as increasing urbanization throughout the world brings concomitant increases in the cost and scarcity of land, locational and site decisions will assume increasing budgetary and political importance. Current State Department site selection procedures cannot respond adequately to the demands of any program, let alone those that will be imposed by implementation of the large construction effort recommended by the Inman Panel. The committee's recommendations call for improvements in these procedures; and although such improvements are directed primarily toward enhanced embassy security, they should also produce returns in overall embassy effectiveness. Recommendation 1: Site selection criteria and procedures. The State Department should adopt a comprehensive and systematic approach to identifying and synthesizing the various factors that are important to the siting of future embassy buildings, including criteria related to site developability, security, communications, and costs. The procedures in such an approach should constitute three sequential phases:



39

• project definition, in which the proposed new building's locational and programmatic requirements—with consideration also given to future needs—are accurately established; • site generation, in which candidate sites are identified, based on programmatic requirements; and • site evaluation, in which a team of professionals, assigned permanently to this responsibility and representing a balance of disciplines, applies the criteria and procedures to select the preferred site. The committee has developed a structured site selection process and methodology for the evaluation of site suitability, a process that takes into account a full range of security and other considerations. For the present, this document should be used to instruct State Department personnel who are or will be involved in site selection; but because the document in its present form is not suitable for field use, it should be used as the basis for developing a field manual for site selection. In fact, the committee urges FBO to begin immediately to develop such a manual. Discussion: Existing site selection guidelines and procedures, to the degree that they exist, are not formalized and do not integrate the full range of concerns that must enter into this important and sensitive process. And although security-related site evaluation criteria do exist, they are not complete and are unevenly administered in practice. Moreover, existing security-related site evaluation criteria are not in balance with other important considerations: costs; appropriateness of the site to the building program; special and often overriding requirements related to the communications system's access and security; and suitability of the site with respect to representational and other goals. In response to these issues, the committee has recommended a site selection process and site evaluation criteria that are flexible and that allow the integration of the special or unique requirements that invariably arise in each embassy building case. As is appropriate, however, the committee's recommendations provide a framework for, but do not and should not supplant, the professional judgment of the members of the site selection team. Recommendation 2: Site size and perimeter standoff distances. For site selection purposes, area requirements should assume a minimum setback distance (from the site perimeter) for all



40

embassy buildings, and such a requirement should be mandatory for all new embassy sites. Given the clear importance of site characteristics to the security of an embassy and its occupants, the committee believes that the State Department should use the full extent of its negotiating abilities, including the authorities of the Foreign Missions Act, to secure sites that meet this requirement. In those few instances of sites on which the minimum setback cannot be achieved, the department should require that a formal, written waiver of the requirement be issued by the Under Secretary for Management before site acquisition can proceed. Recommendation 3: Prescreening of sites. As the State Department office responsible for site selection, FBO should work with assigned members of the post staff before beginning formal site selection procedures to ensure that sufficient information on potential sites has been assembled for use by the site selection team in advance of its visits. Wherever necessary, FBO should temporarily assign personnel to the post for this purpose. Discussion: Under the current site selection process, the post identifies possible sites based on program information (which is sometimes scanty) that has been provided by FBO. In some cases, a site prescreening team is sent to the host country by FBO, followed by a final site selection team; in other cases, only one visit is made, during which site prescreening and final selection are combined. With this type of system, post personnel report on one hand that they do not have sufficient time or resources to identify sites and to gather needed information; on the other hand, members of the site selection teams often remark that their efforts are hampered by the lack of such basic background materials as plot plans, surveys, aerial photographs, and maps. The temporary assignment to the post of an FBO professional would alleviate such problems. This individual should hold the appropriate security clearances, possess a general knowledge of the building program, and understand site developability issues. He or she could then proceed to assemble the information and background materials required for prescreening of the sites that had been identified as possible candidates for development. Ideally, between 10 and 15 possible sites should be identified, depending on local conditions; following the prescreening process, between 5 and 7 sites should be presented for consideration by the selection team.



41

Recommendation 4: Advance preparation for site selection. After prescreening has been carried out and final candidate sites have been identified, detailed information on each site should be assembled by the post under the direction of the FBO professional temporarily assigned for that purpose. This information should be made available to the site selection team prior to its visit. Also, the team should hold at least one meeting before the visit to become familiar with the information. Discussion: The arrival of the site selection team in the host country without adequate preparation seriously jeopardizes its chances of selecting the most suitable site. Admittedly, it is difficult to assemble in advance all of the information needed to make an informed decision; yet, certain basic information requirements must be met: • the proposed building program must be defined clearly; • plot plans, photographs, and site maps with topographical contours should be available; • green field lots should be staked or otherwise clearly demarcated; • locally available utility information should be developed; • information should be assembled on local zoning and building regulations; • the cost of the site, its present ownership, and the condition of any existing facilities should be known; • documented city and area maps should be available to show the relationship of the site to government offices and other points of likely frequent contact, to major transportation facilities, and to surrounding patterns of development; and, • in cases in which future adjacent development may occur, research should be conducted to determine likely future uses.* Recommendation 5: Site selection team. The State Department, under FBO, should form one or more permanent site selection teams that would include professionals with expertise in architecture, landscape planning and engineering, physical and technical security, communications, cost engineering, local foreign language negotiations, and political and diplomatic relations.

* This research should prevent the kind of situation that occurred recently in Lisbon, Portugal; there, a mid-rise hotel was later constructed that overlooked the newly completed U.S. embassy complex.



42

Discussion: Currently, State Department site selection teams are essentially formed on the basis of which personnel are available at the time. They generally include an FBO area operations officer, an FBO architect, and specialists in communications and security. There may also be other members of the team, including representatives of tenant agencies. Because these teams are often formed with little advance notice, they are rarely able to prepare for their task prior to the trip. Even in instances in which some advance notice is given, team members may have little extra time or incentive for preparation. (Indeed, such assignments are often seen as an intrusion on a government employee's normal work responsibilities and as offering no potential for career enhancement.) The formation of permanent site selection teams would overcome these problems and focus appropriate attention on the importance of a careful siting decision. To produce such a decision, the site selection team would review the candidate site information assembled by the assigned FBO professional at the post and administer the procedures and evaluation criteria developed by this committee. Recommendation 6: Adjacent land purchase. In certain cases, the type of future development planned for land adjacent to a U.S. embassy site cannot be determined. In those instances in which the land potentially could be used for purposes that would be unsatisfactory, the State Department should consider purchasing the parcel. The land can be leased or sold later for uses that, from the standpoint of security, are deemed appropriate or acceptable. Discussion: The larger sites that will be required to implement increased embassy setback criteria suggest that many embassy buildings will be located outside of denser, central urban areas; in many cities of the world, this will mean siting embassies in areas in which relatively little development has yet occurred. On the basis of past experience, the presence of the embassy itself will attract adjacent new development, which can be cause for considerable concern. Inappropriate or unacceptable development can threaten the security of the embassy and damage its image. To prevent such circumstances, the committee has formulated the above recommendation.



43

Site Planning and Design Currently, there are very few guidelines in FBO literature relating to site planning, landscape design, and perimeter protection of embassy buildings. Because aspects of site design and perimeter protection frequently constitute the first line of defense against most threats, the committee believes that guidelines in these areas are an absolute necessity; consequently, it has developed the recommendations that follow. The committee has addressed these issues only from the standpoint of security, although site planning and design for embassies in general is inadequately dealt with by current FBO procedures and guidelines. Moreover, with the promulgation of a setback requirement for all embassy buildings, site design and protection take on added significance. The committee recommends that FBO undertake the preparation of a comprehensive set of guidelines for site planning and design, integrating the security recommendations made by this committee. Recognizing, however, that additional research is necessary in many technical areas of site security, the committee further recommends that studies be conducted in these areas. Some of the possible directions for fruitful research are identified in Chapter 8. Recommendation 7: Site security analysis guidelines. FBO should immediately adopt and implement a site security analysis, which should be conducted immediately after site selection and subsequently used as the basis for site planning and design decisions. Discussion: The careful collection and analysis of site-related data are essential to informed design decision making concerning security issues. Therefore, the committee presents procedures for conducting a site security analysis. The analysis deals with topography, vegetation, adjacent land use, circulation, visual access, lighting, utilities, and fire, police, and medical services. It should be undertaken in conjunction with a security threat analysis or impact statement. Recommendation 8: Site security planning guidelines. FBO should immediately adopt and implement a site planning process that emphasizes security and that is conducted concurrently with the functional analysis of the building program.



44

Discussion: Site planning for effective security establishes the relationships between the site and the accompanying offsite and onsite uses. Often, such careful attention can minimize any problems that may arise before the site design process begins. The committee recommends site security planning guidelines that address circulation, access points, parking, the site perimeter, site-to-building and support facility relationships, and offsite relationships. Recommendation 9: Site security design guidelines. FBO should immediately adopt and implement security design guidelines for all major site elements on the perimeter or within the embassy grounds. Discussion: The committee recognizes that many site security design decisions will vary from site to site and will depend on such factors as the physical characteristics of the site, the prevalent offsite conditions, the design intent, and the nature and level of security threats. However, certain site elements or combinations of elements have performance characteristics that should be the basis for a minimum standard, including barriers, walls and fences, guardhouses, sally ports, lighting, plantings, and earth berms. Recommendation 10: Site perimeter. The site perimeter should be designed to protect onsite facilities from ground-level standoff or drive-by attacks, and from thrown explosives. In addition, it should be designed to delay intruders attempting to enter the facility by climb-over or penetration methods and to stop vehicles that are intent on forcible entry. Furthermore, through the use of detection devices, the perimeter should be designed to detect and promote the identification of intruders, whether vehicular or pedestrian. Discussion: The perimeter may be composed of walls, fences, earth berms, natural topographic separations, or any combination thereof that is capable of fulfilling security objectives and that will enhance the architectural image and style of the embassy buildings. Recommendation 11: Site access points. An embassy site should have only two vehicular access points (ceremonial and service), and pedestrian access points should always be separated from vehicular access points. On those sites where chanceries and



45

consular sections are colocated, visitor and employee entrances should be separate. Site access points should be designed to provide inspection capabilities, through the use of a sally port arrangement, and the same level of protection (or greater) as that of the adjoining perimeter barrier treatment. Discussion: Site access points can be the weak link in the perimeter defense system if they are not properly located, designed, and protected. Under certain circumstances, vehicular approach routes to the site may make site entrances the points most vulnerable to attack. For these reasons, and because of the problems inherent in entry control, the number of site entrances should be kept to an absolute minimum. Additionally, vehicular and pedestrian site accesses, as well as employee and visitor entrances, should be separated to minimize the potential threat to each from a breach of the other. Sally port arrangements are necessary at all site entrances to control access and ensure that each entrant is individually inspected. Both vehicular and pedestrian sally ports should be designed so that no two sides may be opened at the same time except in an emergency. Sally ports should also be so designed and located that in the event of a vehicular forced entry attempt, the deflection of the vehicle by any gate or barrier will not allow such a vehicle to approach any occupied building. The location of site access points should be analyzed carefully to ensure that vehicular approach speeds are or can be controlled. Such control is crucial to providing enough response time for the deployment of necessary security measures. Appropriate site access points can be provided using gates, barriers, fences, walls, or other devices, or a combination of these methods. Recommendation 12: Onsite circulation and parking. Onsite vehicular circulation and parking should be restricted to the greatest degree possible. Although vehicular access may be granted to high-ranking U.S. and foreign officials and dignitaries, any onsite parking for these vehicles should be placed at the greatest practical distance from any building within the perimeter. No vehicular site access should be granted to other employees and visitors. Instead, offsite parking in controlled and protected areas may be provided. Vehicular site access should be granted to service and emergency vehicles only when absolutely necessary.



46

In addition, all vehicles accessing the site should be thoroughly searched. Discussion: Onsite vehicular access drives should be limited and controlled to reduce potential threats from vehicles that have penetrated the site entry or gone undetected and that may pose a danger to the facility. Interior access roads should be equipped with a secondary system of barriers that, depending on the nature of the entering vehicle, can selectively permit or deny access to a given area of the site. (For example, barriers preventing access to a particular area may be left deployed until such time as access is warranted.) Architectural Programming and Planning Currently, FBO guidelines instruct design professionals on the size of and preferred relationships among the functional areas normally found within chancery (embassy office) buildings. This documentation serves as the basis for the earliest embassy planning and design efforts in which basic functional areas with assigned space allocations are arrayed in relation to one another and in relation to major circulation and building service facilities. This process is known as functional zoning, and using it to provide the first and most fundamental levels of physical security is an established, time-tested, and proven design approach. Current FBO chancery building program documentation embodies this principle, but it is in need of extensive modifications. Recommendation 13: Chancery building program modifications. FBO should revise the existing chancery building program guidance in accordance with the committee's detailed recommendations and the principles of functional zoning, adjacencies, and separation that are represented in Figure 6-1. Discussion: The committee recommends comprehensive changes in the basic planning and design guidance given to professionals engaged in chancery building design. The approach is encapsulated in Figure 6-1 and embodies the following concepts: • completely separating secure areas, which are accessible only to cleared U.S. citizens (and others under appropriate escort), from areas that are accessible to foreign nationals and others without necessary clearances who are employed by the embassy;

FIGURE 6-1 Schematic diagram of embassy functional layouts and adjacencies.

About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. DESIGN CRITERIA FOR A NEW GENERATION OF U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS 47



48

• in all embassy building work areas, providing staff circulation that is separate from public circulation and that is behind the so-called hardline (a line of protection separating secure areas from more public ones and providing resistance to forced entry attempts and ballistic weapons); • limiting access points to buildings, with provisions for personnel and vehicle access controls and inspection at all points of entry; • providing interior and exterior controlled circulation routes that without proper access protocols cannot be deviated from without alerting guard forces; • clustering and removing functional areas that generate the greatest public traffic from proximity to the more sensitive portions of the embassy compound (public traffic is greatest for immigrant and nonimmigrant visa services, other aspects of consular operations, U.S. Information Service and commercial libraries, nonsecure conference areas and meeting rooms, post community service operations, and associated informational and representational functions); • separating service or industrial-type functional areas from sensitive areas and areas requiring special protective treatments (service functional areas include those that require the use or storage of hazardous materials and equipment, that otherwise represent risks of accidental fires, or that make it extremely difficult to prevent the introduction and concealment of incendiary or explosive, electronic, or other dangerous devices); • using concentric rings of circulation barriers and control points to provide ever more secure areas, moving from the outside toward the innermost reaches of the compound; • separating building service equipment and distribution areas into areas authorized for unescorted access only by cleared U.S. citizens and those allowing limited access to foreign national personnel under escort; and • designating and designing an area for the placement of suspicious articles and explosive devices until they can be examined by experts. Acquiring larger sites for future U.S. embassy buildings, which is desirable for the reasons previously discussed, will also facilitate the segregation of the most sensitive facilities and work areas from those requiring less extensive treatment. Thus, the larger



49

building sites that were recommended earlier in this report will also accommodate the functional zoning principles and separations discussed above. Recommendation 14: Designation of blast and arson risk areas and containment of effects. Certain embassy areas should be designated as areas of risk with respect to bombings and deliberately set fires and should be designed to resist and contain the effects of such incidents. Also, a temporary disposal area should be provided for known or suspected explosive devices. Discussion: A majority of all attacks against U.S. embassy buildings since 1968 have involved either bombings or arson—and often both, because fire generally accompanies bomb blasts. Although the records available to the committee provide only limited detail with respect to where bombs or incendiary devices were placed in these incidents, it is clear that the more public areas of the embassy—essentially, those outside the hardline—are most vulnerable. The committee believes that all reasonable steps must be taken to prevent injury from explosions and/or fires and that compartmentalization of risk areas offers the most promising approach. To achieve these objectives, embassy security system design should minimize the possibility (absolute assurance can never be provided) that bombs or incendiary devices will be brought into the building. In addition, the building should be compartmentalized to prevent the spread or spillover of arson fires or bomb blasts from these more accessible areas to those areas with more restricted access. This can be accomplished both through more careful functional zoning and by the proper design of walls and other separations. Recommendation 15: Secure areas and safe havens. Two separate and distinct protective areas should be designated in different locations of future embassy buildings. Recommendation 16: Separation of hazardous occupancies. All hazardous occupancies, such as heavy building maintenance activities, furniture storage, automobile repair facilities, fuel storage, and paint shops and storage, should be housed in separate fire-rated compartments. Any hazardous materials or occupancies in classified or sensitive building areas should be similarly treated.



50

Discussion: In current embassy designs, multiple occupancy types are often housed in one structure (for example, one building may contain all of the following: office space, building maintenance activities, storage, kitchens, cafeterias, libraries, Marine Guard residences, automobile repair facilities, fuel storage, paint shops and storage, and warehouses). These areas may or may not be separated into fire-rated compartments by fire-rated construction and exits. To increase embassy security and protect structures and occupants, program planning should group functions according to their relative security risk rather than their relative fire hazard. Architectural and Structural Systems The committee recognizes that treatment of the embassy building's exterior envelope represents one of the most challenging aspects of security design because so many factors and potential threats are involved. FBO and the State Department's Office of Security have been working in this area for at least five years, beginning with the development of measures designed to thwart mob actions and unauthorized entry and more recently moving to other considerations. Recommendations 17 and 18: Protection of exterior walls and openings. Building Service and Security Systems As part of its scope of interest, the committee examined in detail a range of threats posed to building service systems, which it has defined to include all electrical, mechanical, and communications networks and equipment. The committee believes that, in general, insufficient attention has been paid in the past by the State Department to security protection for these systems. With the increase in terrorist attacks at U.S. embassies, it would appear that a reconsideration of security measures for these systems is in order. Indeed, the committee's studies indicate that substantial threats would be posed to the security of personnel and information by the compromise of these systems and equipment, all of which provide embassy buildings with vital services. Consequently, the committee recommends that these systems be protected from deliberate or accidental damage that would



51

result in the interruption of vital services. Emergency backup systems and equipment to be used when such events do occur are also needed. In essence, embassy buildings should be designed to function as self-sufficiently as possible, using self-contained, U.S.-controlled systems and equipment wherever practical and relying on locally available utilities only insofar as they are satisfactory. Furthermore, networks and equipment for plumbing, heating, ventilating, electrical, and communications functions should be designed in such a way that they cannot be used by hostile interests to gain intelligence or to otherwise compromise embassy security. Turning to security systems (including status-monitoring devices, public access controls, fire annunciation systems, and others), the committee's studies indicate that they should be as simple as possible and designed to function reliably and appropriately in the specific environmental conditions they will face. Due to the wide variety of local conditions at embassies in which these systems will be used, no single set of systems and equipment will be appropriate for all locations. The committee has examined a large number of the security systems and equipment that are presently available and, presents detailed design and installation considerations that should guide their application for embassy buildings. The recommendations below summarize these criteria and describe the principles that guided their development. Recommendation 19: Protection of systems and equipment. Future embassy buildings should be so designed and constructed that all building service equipment and distribution networks are contained in areas that are secure and that provide clear separations between those elements that are to be accessed and serviced only by cleared U.S. citizens and those that can be accessible to foreign nationals or others without suitable clearances. All such systems should be secured from unauthorized access and provided with alarms to indicate intrusion or tampering. Discussion: The type of building service equipment and distribution area referred to above can be achieved by a wide variety of technical solutions, many of which would not necessarily employ a central service core. There are certain benefits to that solution, however. A physically distinct service equipment and distribution area would ease problems related to maintenance, repair, and servicing. In addition, this type of solution could provide a degree of uniformity in the design and layout of these systems in embassies



52

around the world, once again enabling easier maintenance and repair. The issue of servicing these systems is an important factor in maintaining their security. Because the nonsensitive portions of building service systems are likely at some point to require servicing by foreign nationals and others without security clearances, every effort should be made in building design to ensure the following: • Those building service system components that are likely to need routine servicing and maintenance should be placed outside classified and sensitive work areas and well away from classified and essential equipment that should be handled only by cleared U.S. citizens (essential equipment includes that equipment used to provide basic building services). • Those components that cannot be physically separated should be installed in such a way that they can be easily inspected, removed (for servicing off the premises), and replaced without interruption to critical services within the building. • Distribution networks and equipment areas should be readily secured from vandalism or tampering, yet they should be easy to inspect and should allow relatively simple modification. To ensure the installation of only those raceways, conduits, and other elements that are part of the building design, future embassy design and construction should permit easy and positive inspection during the building process. The connections between the building service equipment and distribution network areas, which are described above, and the embassy's general office areas are most critical. Construction drawings and specifications should clearly indicate the intended and permitted connections; construction techniques and procedures should afford easy verification in the field that only those connections are installed. Any drawings and specifications that are needed for routine servicing of these systems should be controlled; they should not be removed from embassy premises. Any changes that are made to these systems should be fully documented and thoroughly reviewed to ensure that security objectives are not compromised. Recommendation 20: Protection of power, waste, water supply, and communications lines.



53

Recommendation 21: Site self-sufficiency. Embassy sites should be selfsufficient with respect to essential building services such as emergency power and water, including that for fire suppression. Embassy buildings and sites should be designed to function effectively without exclusive reliance on utilities and services supplied from offsite so that, in the event such services are interrupted or become so eroded in quality or availability as to render them unsatisfactory, the embassy may continue operations. Discussion: Local utility supply sources for embassies are not always reliable or of satisfactory quality; they are also vulnerable to sabotage. Because the disruption of these sources may coincide with terrorist attacks, embassies require reliable onsite emergency backups for these systems. The committee is not suggesting that embassies should not use locally available utilities and services, such as electrical power and water, where such services are available in satisfactory quality and form; but it is recommending that steps be taken to reduce the extent of the embassy's reliance on these local resources. Of particular concern in the event of utility service disruptions are electronic information handling systems, computers, and other such devices. Given their requirements for an uninterruptible supply of high-quality electrical power, special efforts must be made to protect embassy buildings from voltage spikes and other spurious signals that are characteristic of power systems in many areas of the world. Because of the considerable variation in the availability and quality of local services throughout the world (there can be variations in service between different sites in the same country or locale), an evaluation of these aspects of local utility services should be a part of initial and ongoing security analyses undertaken for each project. The committee has incorporated such considerations in its recommendations on site evaluation and selection. Recommendation 22: Monitoring and control. Embassy services and security control and monitoring systems should be integrated and simplified, with particular consideration given to their human resources requirements. Also, the State Department should undertake special efforts to upgrade the ergonomic design of command and control stations for both routine and emergency or crisis uses.



54

Discussion: Increasingly, future U.S. embassy buildings will rely on a wide variety of complex control, monitoring, annunciation, and management systems for such diverse purposes as security, communications, access control, environmental conditioning, and equipment status monitoring. A wide range of automated systems is now commercially available for management and monitoring of building service systems and equipment; and these systems can be integrated with others that are used for monitoring and control of security equipment and networks. It is especially likely that these automated monitoring and control systems will be required for large embassy buildings, in which mechanical and electrical systems are larger and more complex. But they have application to and should be used for smaller buildings as well. As discussed in Chapter 5, these control and management systems will, if they are integrated with the existing command and control facilities associated with Marine Security Guard Post 1, impose additional burdens and responsibilities on persons whose capabilities are already taxed. Regardless of where they are located and who operates and monitors them, these systems should, to the maximum degree possible: • rely mainly on principles of alarm and annunciation, rather than on regular or continuous monitoring by a guard or attendant; • be provided with redundant features throughout, so that, for example, a closed-circuit television camera and monitor could be used to assess conditions in an area where a door alarm has been triggered; similarly, light alarms showing on a console or screen should be coupled with a sound alarm; • be designed, as fully as possible, for integration with other systems in order to eliminate multiple panels and screens and to ensure that only those items requiring attention are given prominence (for example, rather than crowding a console with devices for continuous monitoring of central equipment, it should be possible to display information only when and where conditions warrant attention); and • be designed to indicate the recommended or required courses of action to be taken in the event of an emergency, including information about the nature and sequence of steps to be taken and persons to be alerted.



55

Finally, the committee believes that the State Department must undertake special efforts to upgrade the ergonomics and basic human factors engineering and design of these control and command workstations. Such efforts would take into account the full range of tasks, functions, and routine difficulties that are encountered in the monitoring of these systems. Consideration should be given also to the development of a facility for Marine Security Guard training in the tasks and functions noted above.


IMPROVING SECURITY IN THE PLANNING, DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS

56

7 Improving Security in the Planning, Design, Construction, and Management of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings BACKGROUND ON IMPROVEMENTS TO FBO PROCEDURES During its development of guidelines and criteria for increased security in U.S. embassies, the committee came to realize that unless the Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) used a well-managed process for obtaining the services of architects, engineers, and construction companies, there would be difficulties in integrating the committee's security recommendations with the procedures of the State Department. It also was apparent that certain aspects of these procedures, as described later in this chapter, would in themselves affect the security of the buildings that were to be constructed. Therefore, the committee directed its attention toward developing recommendations that would improve FBO's procedures for planning, designing, constructing, and managing future U.S. embassy buildings. The organization of this chapter is based on the steps normally followed in the design and building process. Most of these steps are currently incorporated in the State Department's procedures, which the committee has explored in detail. However, as discussed in previous chapters of this report, the committee in its efforts also has taken into consideration the potential impact of the Inman Panel's recommendations for a greatly expanded building program. The committee's recommendations reflect its awareness of these issues, as well as its collective judgment and experience with the building process within both the private and government sectors.



57

COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS ON PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION, MANAGEMENT, AND ADMINISTRATION Performance-Based Design Criteria Recommendation 23: Design criteria format. FBO should manage the development of a more cohesive, fully integrated set of design manuals and guidelines to be communicated to design teams. Where practical, these criteria should be issued with the concurrence of other embassy tenants to avoid overlap or confusion in the design process. In accordance with the concepts and format developed by the committee, the design guidelines and criteria should be stated in performance terms whenever possible. All such materials should convey clearly the specific requirements of FBO. A comprehensive course of training and briefing on security design matters should be developed and provided to all professionals as a mandatory requirement for rendering design services to FBO. Discussion: During its deliberations, the committee conducted comprehensive reviews of the existing design criteria and guidelines currently in use by FBO. In addition to lacking necessary emphasis on security-related matters, these materials are, in general, uneven in quality, superfluous or outdated in parts, and wholly lacking an integrative framework. New design guidance, generated principally by the Office of Security, is contained in provisional memoranda that at times conflict with the guidelines contained in the bound FBO design manuals. As a result, design professionals can be overwhelmed and confused by the volume of these materials and their lack of clear organization. Moreover, FBO's current design criteria and guidelines represent a mixture of prescriptive statements and performance statements. The prescriptive statements instruct the design professionals on the precise methods and materials that must be used; the performance statements present the desired performance attributes clearly and in terms against which solutions can be evaluated, leaving the choice of methods, design approaches, and materials to the design professional. The committee believes that FBO design criteria, including those that do not pertain strictly to security issues, should, wherever possible, be stated in performance terms.



58

An Integrated Computer Data Base Recommendation 24: Integrated data base. A critical element in managing the major program of new embassy construction planned by FBO is an integrated data base (that is, one that begins to collect information about each building project from its first stages of planning and programming and continues to accumulate needed data in a computer file during the entire life cycle of the embassy). It is important that FBO establish such a data base, an example of which is shown in Figure 7-1. Discussion: Although FBO currently employs some computer applications, the committee recommends that an extensive effort be made to build on the work of the Building Research Board's Committee on Advanced Technology for Building Design and Engineering. Over the past three years, this committee has developed in some detail the conceptual framework for an integrated data base for building clients. FBO can create such a tool by capturing the data currently generated by architects, engineers, estimators, suppliers, construction firms, and others—data that are essentially by-products of their activities. The progress that has been made in computer technology, the increased use of and experience in employing computers by professionals of all sorts, and the lower costs of computer technology and software all contribute to making the concept of such an integrated data base feasible. The development of an integrated data base will enhance all aspects of FBO project management, record keeping, and facility maintenance. If undertaken in an evolutionary manner, FBO's implementation of such technology should cause minimal disruption and provide a valuable management tool. Space Programming and Facility Needs Identification Recommendation 25: Space programming. FBO should institute a structured procedure for space programming that will accurately reflect current and anticipated embassy needs and incorporate the following considerations unique to this building type: • Security. Functional adjacencies and circulation patterns that result from the required separation of secure areas from those accessible to foreign service nationals (FSNs) and the public may influence space programming. In addition, special security systems

FIGURE 7-1 Integrated project data base.

About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. IMPROVING SECURITY IN THE PLANNING, DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE U.S. EMBASSY BUILDINGS 59



60

and equipment have unique space and service system requirements that should be identified concurrently with other building requirements. • Personnel. An accurate assessment of State Department and other user agency personnel (both part-time, full-time, and contract), including FSNs, should be carried out as a first step in the programming process to determine space requirements. • Functional requirements. A recognition of the functions associated with FSNs and contract personnel (such as extra cafeterias and recreational associations) should be part of the space programming process. Discussion: The existing space programming methods prescribed by FBO date from 1964 and consist solely of a required listing of full-time State Department personnel. As such, they provide little guidance on how to deal with the multiplicity of current embassy users in terms of current security programming requirements. The committee's collective experience with State Department embassy design, coupled with its visits to embassies during the course of its work, illuminated the results of an inadequate space programming procedure: overcrowding and inappropriate postconstruction modifications to structures to incorporate security considerations or unaccounted-for staff and others. Recommendation 26: Standardized components and large-scale procurement. FBO should explore the opportunities that may result from the standardized design and large-scale procurement of selected embassy components and systems that would be made possible under the Inman Panel recommendations. These components and systems could be produced in the United States under secure conditions and then shipped and stored in a secure fashion on foreign sites. Discussion: The fabrication of standardized components and systems for future embassies could offer an opportunity for the development of a building system that would provide security improvements at controlled costs. These specialized systems could be custom designed for embassies and would include such items as the following: • window units that are designed against a special set of security requirements—if well conceived and designed, such windows



61

would represent an improvement in performance at a reasonable cost and still allow a diversity of design alternatives; and • components for other security purposes, which might include a range of products from doors to Marine Security Guard enclosures and that would lend themselves to standardized design for large-volume production. Architect and Engineer Selection Process Recommendation 27: Procurement of architectural and engineering services. FBO should institute changes in its procedures for the procurement of architectural and engineering services to incorporate the following features: • The Architectural Advisory Panel should be expanded to include members with expertise in such areas as structural engineering, building services design, and security. Strictures on their terms of service and ability to secure work from FBO should be modified. • Preselection criteria, to be applied by FBO staff prior to the panel's review of qualifications submittals, should give recognition to those design teams that have a capability in security design and should not exclude teams that have previous State Department experience. Discussion: The Architectural Advisory Panel has played, and should continue to play, a valuable role within the State Department's construction programs by emphasizing excellence in design and by helping to ensure that representation of an appropriate U.S. image abroad is incorporated in embassy buildings of architectural distinction. There are shortcomings in the current advisory panel process, however, and four issues have influenced this recommendation: • Three panel members, whose service is voluntary, are too few in number for the major program anticipated. • Aesthetic and architectural design sensibilities must be balanced with a serious and pervasive concern for security at all levels, beginning with the selection of properly qualified design professionals.



62

• To limit any proliferation of contract documents through their distribution to a wider base of noncleared persons, it is recommended that architects be U.S. citizens who hold an appropriate security clearance. • The complexity of security design requirements in future embassies dictates that experience in this field is a desirable prerequisite of embassy design teams. Program Management Recommendation 28: Program management. The State Department should implement a project management program to ensure uniform, effective, and efficient management of the total program of new embassy construction that would result from the implementation of the Inman Panel report. The program management effort should be centralized in Washington, D.C., and should be performed by, or under, the direction and control of the State Department. The program should encompass the total building effort from inception through occupancy of all facilities throughout the world. Discussion: The program management function for the embassy construction planned by the State Department should include the following: • establishment of uniform guidelines and procedures related to programming, site selection, site development, design, procurement of construction, and occupancy of all facilities; • development of prototypical architect/engineer and other consultant fee agreements with appropriate prequalification and selection procedures; • development of prototypical contract forms between contractors and the State Department to reflect various project requirements—for example, fast-track construction, lump sum bids, turnkey, and the like; • establishment of centralized accounting functions to ensure a proper audit trail and uniform accounting procedures; • establishment by the State Department of permanent review and management teams to oversee the program (the teams should include representation by all sections of the State Department involved in the review and approval process);



63

• development and implementation of the integrated data base discussed in recommendation 24; • development of a procedure for the establishment of realistic budgets and time schedules for each project and of monitoring procedures to ensure that each project is developed on time and within budget. Budgets should include both hard costs (e.g., construction) and soft costs (e.g., land acquisition, design fees, furniture); • development of a quality assurance program to ensure that facilities are designed and constructed to the prescribed quality levels; • application of value engineering/life-cycle costing techniques to ensure that the State Department obtains maximum value for its money over the life cycle of the buildings; and • incorporation of guidelines to enhance the secure distribution of design and construction documents and to improve security during the construction process. Project Administration Recommendation 29: Project administration. Within the overall program management structure, the State Department should also develop a centralized project administration procedure that assigns responsibility and control for each project to one Washington-based individual for the project's duration. The function should include the following: • oversight of the development of a comprehensive space management program; • development and maintenance of the project data base; • development and review of the project timetable; • dissemination to the design team of new guidance and change orders; • revision and updating of the design program; • coordination and review with tenant agencies (if any); • coordination and administration of design review and project progress meetings; • liaison and coordination with the post; and • identification and resolution of conflicts and issues that may from time to time arise among parties to the project.



64

Discussion: FBO currently has no consistent system for the administration of embassy design projects from the predesign stage through postoccupancy evaluation. Yet, because of the wide geographical distribution of FBO projects and the variety of tenants or potential users of each planned facility, crucial project decisions are often difficult to make and may be delayed or changed during (or even after) the building process. The resulting delays and reductions in building quality point to the need for more centralized control of the process and more feedback regarding past design decisions. Such centralized control can be achieved by assigning project administration responsibility to one individual for the duration of the project. The project administrator should be based in Washington and should be the point of contact and the central manager for all aspects of a given project, receiving whatever support is necessary to carry out these duties. Support technical staff should also be based in Washington and should communicate with the architect/engineer and post primarily through the project administrator. In addition to these individuals, each project should have a team of FBO technical advisers/reviewers that consists of an architect, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, civil/structural engineer, interiors specialist, and physical security specialist. Other technical specialists should also be part of the Washington staff, to be called upon as needed by the project administrator. These include specialists in communications, information management, cost control, agency technical liaison, fire protection, and construction management. One administrator could handle several projects on a staggered basis but should not be burdened with duties related to ongoing improvement programs at a number of existing posts (and the associated requirements for frequent travel). Support technical personnel probably can handle more than one project at a time, as long as key review events do not occur simultaneously. Recommendation 30: Security aspects of procurement. To enhance the security of future embassy facilities to the maximum extent possible, the circulation of drawings and related documentation during the bidding, award, and construction processes should be restricted, and consideration should be given to using, whenever possible, U.S. contractors and subcontractors who hold appropriate security clearances.



65

Discussion: Documents on U.S. embassy facilities currently are available to any contractor who wishes to bid, as well as to subcontractors and suppliers. Often, these categories will include firms from countries that are not friendly to the United States. It may be possible, by judicious prequalification of contractors and by the use of controlled bidding and procurement procedures, to reduce significantly the circulation of construction documents. Given the volume of construction being contemplated by the State Department, it should be possible to obtain successful competitive bids from cleared U.S. construction firms. Recommendation 31: Cost considerations. Steps should be taken immediately to gather raw cost data for review, refinement, and assembly into a format suitable for budgeting and subsequent financial management. The data should be drawn from known bid results for similar work or from estimates of costs computed from preliminary designs for new embassy facilities. From these cost data, cost models should be developed for various embassy types that can be used for budgeting and financial management purposes. To ensure maximum value for its expenditures, the State Department should make value management studies an integral part of the overall design process. Additionally, value incentive clauses should be included in contracts between the contractor and the State Department. Discussion: The cost/benefit implications of designing embassies to meet new criteria for enhanced security will be significantly different than for earlier FBO projects. Therefore, direct cost comparisons with previous work will not always be appropriate. For example, the requirement for minimum setbacks immediately increases the size and cost of new sites. And the mandate for increased security that dictates a “hardened” building, physical security measures around and within the building, and increased security for information and communications devices will contribute to increased costs as well as improved performance. Standby power generation, increased fire protection, and a self-sufficient water supply also bring higher costs. In addition, if bidding on projects is restricted to U.S. firms (as opposed to bids from foreign firms), this may result in further expenditures. As research continues, improved and probably more costly security-related guidelines will be introduced to combat both terrorist attacks and electronic surveillance. The successful implementation



66

of the proposed Inman Panel construction program will depend in part on reliable cost models coupled with an understanding of the security benefits these increases in costs are likely to produce. Operation and Maintenance Procedures Recommendation 32: Building operation and maintenance. Operating and maintenance manuals for building and security systems should be project deliverables that are required of embassy system and building designers, contractors, and suppliers. Regional maintenance staffs consisting of U.S. personnel holding appropriate security clearances should be established to maintain security and emergency systems and ensure that building systems do not need to be serviced by FSNs. In addition, manuals should be provided by the architects/engineers or other appropriate design professionals detailing the intended use of the building under emergency conditions. These manuals should also address routine building servicing, operating, and maintenance requirements. Discussion: The operating and maintenance manuals provided with buildings should be explicit with regard to the intended use of the building under emergency conditions, including plans for evacuation, hiding, and other actions that are likely to take place in times of attack or other threatening contingencies. These manuals should also address routine building servicing, operating, and maintenance requirements. Currently, FBO has no standard operating or maintenance procedures for embassy buildings. In most cases, maintenance is performed by local nationals, a circumstance that necessarily limits the technical complexities of the various systems in the building. Because of such limitations, the FBO building inventory cannot take advantage of emerging systems that, although performing more efficiently and with a longer life, may require maintenance beyond the technical capabilities of local nationals. This committee is not in a position to evaluate the costs and potential administrative difficulties that might be associated with the establishment of a technical maintenance staff of U.S.-cleared citizens, but it believes this proposal warrants careful and serious consideration. In addition, the committee has attempted in its design criteria development efforts to call for design approaches



67

that will minimize the need for access to secure work areas for routine building maintenance functions. Postoccupancy Evaluation Procedures Recommendation 33: Postoccupancy evaluation. All new embassies, after at least one year of occupancy, should be evaluated for a series of factors that are designed to measure aspects of the building's performance. In addition, there should be a system for obtaining feedback from these evaluations in a manner that will allow the knowledge gained to be used in improving design criteria. The committee believes that such evaluations will lead to the improved quality of both the building that is thus evaluated and subsequent building projects. Discussion: Postoccupancy evaluation should take place at least one year after occupancy and should examine the following: • functional factors, comparing the building's initial functional and space programming to actual facility use and evaluating the overall suitability of the site; • technical factors, measuring the operational effectiveness of installed materials and systems; • economic factors, measuring the efficiency of the design and construction process, staff operating costs, maintenance costs, and actual versus intended life-cycle costs; • behavioral factors, measuring the occupants' use of building spaces and equipment as they are affected by the performance of the completed building; and • cost-time factors, comparing the building's initial construction budget and schedule with the final construction costs and completion time. This information serves several purposes. An evaluation can be made about how well the building design decisions have fulfilled program objectives (such as operational needs, user needs, occupant satisfaction, system performance, and security requirements). It can also provide important feedback to new embassy designs on the successes and failures of previous building performance. And an evaluation of this type can aid as well in the identification of new assumptions and relationships between certain design decisions and building or occupant performance and behavior.



68

Postoccupancy evaluation holds great promise for improving the design process and its outcome as long as an effective feedback procedure is implemented. As a larger evaluation data base on embassy performance is compiled, designers can begin to find some answers to questions regarding optimum space allocations, traffic patterns, adjacencies, security performance, and other important design and building considerations for which the only present guidelines are experience, tradition, and the use of outdated standards. Facilities Management Recommendation 34: Building information management systems. FBO should develop a building information system that tracks the flow of important construction data throughout the design and construction process. All proposed construction or alterations should be examined thoroughly with respect to their possible effects on the security of the building in question. After construction is completed, record drawings of the embassy should be prepared and updated as changes occur during the life of the building. Discussion: An adequate record must be maintained at all times of the “as built” condition of the embassy. Such a record is needed both in the interest of good facilities management practices and in the event the embassy is taken over by hostile persons. Under ideal conditions, this information will be in the integrated project data base (see recommendation 24) and would be available to rescue forces, if necessary, at any location in the world. Wherever such information resides, however, it is important that any changes made to the embassy building and systems are fully documented and assessed from a security standpoint.


FUTURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

69

8 Future Research and Development

As part of its charge, the committee agreed to consider and provide advice to the State Department on security-related research questions and areas that warrant further investigation and development. The recommendations that appear later in this chapter were developed because these questions and issues extend beyond the scope of what could be accomplished using the resources available to the committee. It should be noted that these are the first of the committee's recommendations in this area. A subsequent report to be issued in April 1986* will elaborate on the points presented here and will raise new issues to be confronted as part of continuing research and development activities within and for the State Department. THE NEED FOR A SUSTAINED BUILDING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM WITHIN THE STATE DEPARTMENT The committee believes that the State Department needs to establish and maintain a strong, carefully directed building research and development activity, a substantial part of which should be related to design for security. This chapter provides the rationale for this view, describes especially challenging or promising areas on which such studies could initially be concentrated, and

* Note added by the committee to report in September 1986: This subsequent report was actually transmitted in September 1986.



70

defines the subjects that the Building Research Board will continue to pursue through the term of its present efforts on behalf of the State Department. Recommendation 35: Ongoing research program. The Office of Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO) should fund and administer ongoing research and development activities directed toward the improvement of existing security-related design methods and criteria. These research and development activities should be planned and carried out in cooperation with, but independently of, related programs and activities within the State Department's Office of Security and Office of Communications. An outgrowth of the FBO research and development programs should be integrated technical design requirements, translated into performance criteria that can be implemented in practical terms by design professionals. Discussion: There are at least three reasons why an ongoing research and development program is a necessary and appropriate aspect of FBO's activities: 1.

There remain significant technical challenges that must be met if security is to be enhanced in future U.S. embassy buildings to the fullest extent of current abilities. 2. The security-related research and development activities carried out by other federal agencies, although capable of providing valuable information to FBO, are not directed toward the unique needs and circumstances of foreign embassy buildings. 3. FBO, in the State Department's current organizational context, has the encompassing responsibilities and concerns that will allow security considerations to be factored in with the full range of other considerations and issues that are invariably a part of building diplomatic facilities abroad. The challenge of designing secure facilities can hardly be called new; much of architecture and building through the ages have been at least in part for defensive purposes. In many cases throughout history, security considerations were primary. Certain well-established principles of security-conscious design and planning that remain in use today (for example, concentric rings of formidable barriers to control access and define physical zones of security) have their origins in historic town planning and building patterns used the world over.



71

Ancient principles of defensive building design and planning, and much of the technical knowledge that has since accumulated in this field, are concerned with how to build defensively against what at any given time is considered an assault by conventional military means. To the significant degree that terrorism and terrorist attacks depart from these military “conventions” (because terrorism is characterized by the element of surprise and the use of unconventional, generally unanticipated means of assault), they represent design challenges of a different order. These factors are recognized today by many of the organizations, including the State Department, that must protect people, information, and buildings from threats of terrorism, espionage, and sabotage. The design requirements for contemporary defense installations, water treatment stations, pipelines, refineries, power plants, and a wide range of other sensitive public and private industrial facilities all address problems of security and access control. And they explicitly identify measures that are intended to counteract threats of terrorism and industrial or national security espionage. Yet there remain substantial technical problems and challenges that are unique to the State Department and that require sustained attention and technical endeavor to overcome. Although several agencies of the federal government now have active research programs related to physical security and even to counterterrorist design, these programs are concerned with a range of facilities and circumstances that are quite different from those of interest to the State Department. These other federally sponsored research and development programs have provided and will continue to provide valuable information to FBO. However, they are directed toward the design of facilities whose purposes are essentially military or industrial in nature and not toward the design of buildings that have public use purposes. Even within the State Department itself, the vigorous and productive programs of research and technical development being carried out through the Office of Security and Office of Communications do not—and probably cannot—take into account the full range of engineering and architectural design issues that confront actual projects. Rather, it is FBO, as the agency that oversees and carries out building programs, that is responsible for ensuring that the narrower concerns of these other offices are integrated and applied.



72

The committee believes that a number of the national laboratories and other research facilities operated at federal government expense offer a potentially excellent research resource to the State Department. This has been an area of interest and concern to the committee but one that lay outside the scope of its charge. The committee believes, however, that in implementing this recommendation the State Department could profitably seek additional direct advice from the National Research Council as to the capabilities and appropriateness of particular laboratories for the performance of specific research activities. In addition, FBO should continue close consultation with the Offices of Security and Communication in regard to future research and development initiatives. Currently, these offices remain informed of each other's activities, and there is some consultation among them in the planning of research projects, but their efforts lack the overall sense of direction and guidance that would come from a more formal and rigorous approach. The Bureau of Administration should consider the formalization of a research planning structure and procedure within the State Department, headed by FBO, that would ensure a coordinated, comprehensive, and well-integrated approach to these initiatives. TECHNIQUES AND METHODS FOR SECURITY IMPACT ASSESSMENTS Recommendation 36: Security impact assessment development. The State Department's research and development activities should concentrate in part on the development and implementation of formal techniques and methods for evaluating and reporting on the security-related aspects of future embassy buildings throughout the facility life cycle. Discussion: Elsewhere, this report recommends that the State Department conduct detailed and highly tailored security assessments on a project-byproject basis, beginning at the earliest stages of project planning and design and carrying through the entire facility life cycle. However, the department's current technical capability to carry out this task is rudimentary. A properly conceived and fully developed security impact assessment capability would encompass at least the following stages and concerns:



73

• Site acquisition and funding. This earliest stage of programming and planning includes an analysis of the host country context in security terms, taking into account military and intelligence forecasts; an identification of the post mission and the associated agencies likely to be on the embassy building compound and the resulting security impacts; and a delineation of the security contingencies that may arise, including options for response. • Preliminary programming and planning. Explicit site conditions and appropriate general design responses are identified, in addition to specific requirements for power, emergency backups, basic functional relationships, and vehicle access. • Architectural and engineering design review. Schematic and design development documents are reviewed and evaluated in light of applicable performance criteria and any subsequent host country developments. • Bidding and construction document security. In this stage, assessments are carried out to identify specific security requirements for handling and distributing project documents. Also, portions of the design are identified for construction and/or inspection only by U.S. citizens. • Pre- and postoccupancy security evaluations. As-built facilities, both prior to and after initial occupancy, are evaluated by a variety of means, including unobtrusive observation and interviews, to determine the effectiveness of design measures and the validity of design assumptions. Findings from these efforts are used to correct any deficiencies that are noted and to revise future planning and design criteria. • Operation and maintenance security evaluations. Vulnerability assessments are carried out as an element of routine facility caretaking activities to identify the readiness and adequacy of basic emergency and backup systems and to assess the facility's ability to perform in light of recent suspected or known security threats. • Postevent evaluations. Assessments of the performance of the physical facility are made following any event in which security was actually threatened or breached. The results of these assessments are integrated with design criteria and are used to guide facility modifications and adjustments. • Decommissioning security evaluation. In the event of the abandonment of an embassy building, a security assessment is made to determine what items must be removed and/or destroyed,



74

and to identify parts of the building that should be disguised or otherwise treated so as not to reveal vital information about building patterns that could be used to compromise the security of other facilities. These descriptions are illustrative and are only intended to suggest the range of considerations and steps that should be addressed by the State Department as part of a comprehensive approach to building security impact assessments. Some elements of this approach currently exist in various forms within the Offices of Security and Communications. In addition, as noted by the Inman Panel, the State Department now has a successful program of post emergency action drills. The results of these drills could become even more beneficial if the drills are integrated with more formalized, comprehensive, and continuous building security impact assessments. SITE DESIGN ELEMENTS Recommendation 37: Physical elements for site security. FBO should sponsor or conduct an ongoing research and development program specifically directed toward testing the effectiveness of site design elements against the security threats of greatest concern to embassies. Discussion: The committee is aware of and has reviewed the results of research and testing programs sponsored by the government, its laboratories, private industry, and universities, programs that are concerned with the design and operation of security-related site elements. Although there is a great deal of activity in this area, particularly with regard to vehicle barriers and antiramming devices, the appropriateness of this work to embassy site planning and design is questionable. Much of it has focused on military or industrial applications that are not suitable for embassy buildings. And, although many of the principles and some of the techniques are applicable to embassy sites, more research is needed on the following: • the effectiveness of combining fences, walls, earth berms, and other landscape and site elements as perimeter barriers; • the use of new materials and techniques, or the refinement of existing ones, for the construction of perimeter walls;



75

• innovative techniques for arresting vehicles without the use of physical barriers such as walls (a number of these techniques are now being proposed for investigation at Los Alamos National Laboratory; such studies should be supported); • efficient, restrikeable security lighting systems that are capable of functioning after being fired upon; and • new site elements that will respond to technical security threats and attack scenarios and that may not have been considered by the committee. A research program that encompasses these topics could be undertaken in cooperation with other federal agencies facing similar challenges in new public buildings. Such a program, however, must emphasize requirements for technical simplicity and ease of maintenance, and its results must be suited to locations where skilled labor and relatively sophisticated equipment or materials are unavailable. Recommendation 38: Development of new enclosure systems. Recommendation 39: Development of door and window systems.


CONCLUSION

76

9 Conclusion

Consistent with events of the past decade, terrorism—and particularly terrorist actions directed against U.S. citizens and facilities abroad—shows signs of continuing to increase, both in the intensity and severity of attacks and in the number of incidents. One of the main targets of such actions has been and will probably continue to be the United States presence abroad, as embodied in its embassy buildings and in the persons of its citizens, both official and private. With the increasing awareness by the State Department of the scope of these threats has come a growing determination to provide protection, to the fullest extent possible, for U.S. embassy buildings and their occupants and contents. It is toward this challenge that the efforts of the Committee for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings have been directed for the past year.* That the U.S. Department of State should seek the advice of a committee of this nature is significant and encouraging. It demonstrates, in a most concrete manner, the degree of recognition and concern that has developed around the issue of security for embassy buildings and the advantage the department sees in seeking outside advice and recommendations against which to assess its efforts.

* Note added by the committee to report in September 1986: The committee's work was extended for an additional nine months in January 1986.


CONCLUSION

77

It would be unwise, however, to suppose that the efforts needed to guard against a repetition of past outrages and tragedies at U.S. Foreign Service missions will be complete with the implementation of measures and recommendations conceived at one point in time against threats that appear for the moment to be the most likely. This is a quite natural but unfortunately mistaken response. It is clear to this committee, and should be clear also to the State Department, that only constant vigilance and repeated, continuing assessment of potential threats and countermeasures can provide reasonable assurance that appropriate safeguards are in place. The committee is hopeful that the findings and recommendations contained in this document will provide an important and useful contribution to this critical endeavor.

The embassy of the future recommendations for the design of future U.S. embassy buildings

The Embassy of the Future

The Future of Us

The Future of Us

The Future of Design Methodology

The Shadow 045 - The Embassy Murders

The Architecture of Poetry: The Iranian Embassy in Washington, D.C

Ian Watson - Alien Embassy

Ian Watson - Alien Embassy

The future of life

The Future of Coal

Hieroglyphs of the Future

The Future of Faith

Vision Of The Future

Vision of the Future

The Future of Career

The Future of Citizenship

Physics of the Future

The Future Of Sustainability

Vision of the future

Ian Watson - Alien Embassy

The Future of Pakistan

Vision of the Future

Visions of the Future

Fear Of The Future

Vision of the Future

Vision of the Future

The Future of Religion

The Future of Nostalgia

Future of the Philippines

The Future of Management

The embassy of the future recommendations for the design of future U.S. embassy buildings