ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Architecture and Structural SecurityHouse and Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. to bridgesin Manhattan and the Sears Tower in Chicago.In December, 2001, the FBI revealed that the WorldTrade Center terrorists might have actually used commerciallyavailable software to plot the destruction of thetowers. Several hundred such programs were on themarket at that time, although fewer than half a dozenwould have been capable or portraying the effects of aplane crash in any detail.Studying how the towers fell. During late 2001 and 2002,government and private investigators undertook studiesto understand how a jetliner could have caused the collapseof the towers. Quickly, the investigators, includingrepresentatives of the American Society of Civil Engineersand the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),concluded that it was not the impact, but the heat from theburning jet fuel that weakened the steel. The NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which laterdid its own study, found that the temperatures were nothigh enough to actually melt the steel, as had been originallyassumed. The temperatures were sufficient however,to weaken the steel beams, which crumbled at theimpact levels of the towers and, in turn, resulted in weightloads sufficient to crush the floors remaining below, resultingin the total collapse of the structures.Those involved in the World trade Center site investigationalso attributed part of the buildings’ vulnerability towhat had also been their strength, the use of exterior wallsas support. In older skyscrapers such as the Empire StateBuilding, support was at the building’s core. This thicket ofmassive steel girders not only took up rentable interiorspace, but they had their structural shortcomings, includingthe fact that they did not prevent a building fromswaying in the wind. In the WTC, the exterior columnswere linked to the core with steel trusses that had beeninadequately fireproofed in the building process. Surroundedonly by light foam fireproofing and walled offwith sheetrock rather than concrete, the trusses at theimpact site were easily exposed by the twin plane crashes,leaving them vulnerable to melting or loss of integrity.Building for the future. The GSA approved a wide range ofdesigns in December, 2001, that seemed to have alreadytaken into account the World Trade Center tragedy threemonths before. In fact, these were the result of the samepost-Oklahoma City studies that yielded the FederalCampus earlier.Among the $6 billion worth of projects released in aflurry of GSA approvals was a district courthouse forMiami. Unlike the Federal Campus, this building did sitback from the street, with the intervening space hosting anarboretum. Yet, the arboretum served a security purpose,and not only because it separated the building from thestreet. “Even if a truck got through the trees,” architectBernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, the design firm,told the Wall Street Journal, “they would hit this undulatinglawn. We’ve created an invisible barrier in the sensethat it doesn’t look like a wall.”Another courthouse, in Springfield, Massachusetts,solved the conflict of security versus aesthetics in a differentfashion. Planners wanted local citizens to visit thecourthouse frequently for community events, and ifattendees had to pass through magnetometers and checkpointsupon entering, this would create a decidedly unfriendlyenvironment. Instead, they separated the entrypavilion from the interior portion, with its security checkpointshidden from view.At the new headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in Washington, designershad dealt with the problem of bollards, the stubby concreteposts that prevent vehicles from driving into buildingsat street level. Although useful for security, they aretypically far from pleasing visually, yet the architects ofthe ATF building managed to create bollards that were anexception to the rule. “Instead of looking like dragon’steeth,” GSA commissioner for public buildings F. JosephMoravec told the Journal, “there will be some reallycool metal bollards. They’ll have an antique, almostEdwardian look.”In at least one spot in Washington, D.C., the GSA’s“post-9/11” design criteria had been implemented beforethe World Trade Center attacks. This was the Pentagon,where architects of a remodeling project had used newtechniques and materials intended to ensure that, in theevent of a devastating attack, the building section wouldcollapse progressively, rather than in a heap. Architectshad also used shatterproof glass and other materialsbecause, as Moravec noted, “One of the terrible lessons ofOklahoma City was that when a bomb goes off near abuilding, it’s not so much the blast that kills people. It’sthat the explosion creates flying elements, pieces of wallsand glass that kill.” In the remodeled portion of the Pentagon,“When the blast hit the wall, the wall itself didn’tbecome a weapon. There’s no question that the glasspanels there saved a lot of lives.”❚ FURTHER READING:PERIODICALS:Aveni, Madonna. “Software Analyzes Potential Threats toBuildings.” Civil Engineering 71, no. 10 (October 2001): 36.Brouwer, Greg. “Oklahoma City Complex Will Usher inNew Design Criteria.” Civil Engineering 72, no. 3 (March2002): 16.Dunlap, David W. “Architects Put on the Alert over RequestsThat Are Rare.” New York Times. (October 4, 2001): B8.Grant, Peter. “Plots and Ploys.” Wall Street Journal. (December26, 2001): B4.Kent, Cheryl. “A Safer Federal Building for OklahomaCity.” New York Times. (August 22, 1999): 34.Ottaway, David B. “Reagan Building Vulnerable to Attack.”Washington Post. (March 8, 1999): A1.50 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security