As a business owner or facility manager, are you taking the necessary steps to protect your employees from a potential active shooter event?
In an era where active shooter incidents have become an increasing threat to public safety, the role of protective design engineering in mitigating these risks has never been more critical.
Traditional security measures alone are often insufficient in preventing or reducing casualties in such events, making it essential to incorporate strategic design principles that enhance building resilience and occupant protection. By leveraging protective design strategies—such as access control, natural surveillance, and target hardening—architects, engineers, and security professionals can create environments that deter threats, delay aggressors, and provide safer options for evacuation or sheltering in place.
Understanding Active Shooter Threats
Active shooter incidents are unpredictable, rapidly unfolding events in which an individual or multiple attackers actively engage in killing or attempting to kill people in confined or populated areas.
These attacks often occur in schools, workplaces, places of worship, and public spaces, where large groups of people are gathered. Unlike other security threats, active shooter situations typically unfold in minutes, requiring an immediate response to minimize casualties. Protective design engineering plays a crucial role in mitigating these risks by shaping the built environment to enhance safety, delay the attacker, and facilitate rapid law enforcement response.
Principles of Protective Design Engineering
Protective design engineering focuses on integrating security measures into the architectural and structural aspects of a facility to improve resilience against threats, including active shooters. The goal is to design buildings and spaces that deter attacks, limit damage, and provide clear pathways for evacuation or lockdown procedures. One foundational approach to protective design is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which emphasizes:
- Natural Surveillance – Increasing visibility through strategic placement of windows, lighting, and security cameras to deter attackers.
- Access Control – Limiting entry points and using secured entrances to prevent unauthorized access.
- Territorial Reinforcement – Establishing clear boundaries between public and private areas using fencing, signage, and landscaping.
- Target Hardening – Strengthening physical components such as reinforced doors, ballistic glass, and lockable interior spaces to slow down intruders.
By incorporating these principles into building design, organizations can reduce vulnerabilities and create environments that enhance safety and security.
Conducting Security Risk Assessments
A security risk assessment is a critical step in identifying vulnerabilities and implementing appropriate protective measures for a facility. These assessments should be conducted by experienced security professionals with certifications such as Physical Security Professional (PSP) or Certified Protection Professional (CPP) to ensure a thorough, unbiased evaluation.
Key aspects of a security risk assessment include:
- Identifying Potential Threats – Assessing the likelihood of an active shooter event based on location, historical data, and industry-specific risks.
- Evaluating Existing Security Measures – Reviewing current physical security infrastructure, access control systems, and emergency response protocols.
- Analyzing Building Layout and Design – Identifying choke points, escape routes, and areas that may be vulnerable to unauthorized access.
- Developing Mitigation Strategies – Recommending design improvements, security technology enhancements, and training programs to reduce risks.
Regularly updating and refining security risk assessments ensures that facilities remain prepared for evolving threats.
The IEI Physical Security Advantage
As Physical Security Professionals (PSP), we have conducted physical security risk assessments for individual buildings and entire campuses. We have lead design teams in the incorporation of physical security into the building design.
We have also performed physical security peer reviews of finished designs on behalf of the government. And with our expertise in structural engineering including structural dynamics, we’re able to holistically engineer buildings for ballistic and explosive threats including hardening and progressive collapse resistance. With our extensive Engineer of Record (EOR), we can easily manage the incorporation of protective design and physical security measures into each of the discipline drawings and specifications.
Our sought-after expertise has resulted in numerous peer reviewed presentations at professional society conferences and symposiums in the area of physical security, risk assessments, terroristic and wartime threats, blast and progressive-collapse resistance design, and vehicle barriers.
Contact us today to see how we can help you with your next project!