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Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive
Tool for Building Security
Mary Felix and Mostafa Elhefnawi
Abstract
All over the world, many types of building and spaces
have been targeted to be more secure because of the
current political, social and cultural situation. Urban
cultural landscape can support the necessary condition of
social security. Landscape design elements have many
purposes, such as functional, environmental and aesthet-
ical aspects. One of these purposes is to ensure the
defensive role that the design could apply to different
zones of building security. The balance between security
aspects and other aspects of landscape design is a must to
achieve effective risk reduction without losing the identity
of a building’s surrounding spaces. This paper aims to
observe and analyse the efficiency of landscape elements
in acting as defensive tools, through the different levels of
security building zones (such as building parameter,
building yard, sidewalks, parking line and street) in
several case studies in the Middle East.
Keywords
Landscape elements Defensive landscape
Building security Space security
1 Introduction
Terrorism and bombing attacks are the main topics of news
nowadays. Every terror attack oriented to a space or building
suffers a large number of victims. A huge amount of these
attacks happen in the Middle East. Despite these attacks
mainly being a security challenge, there are other methods
that could be effective in decreasing their impacts. The urban
landscape is one of the tools that can manage and decrease
the effect of terrorism attacks on buildings and open spaces.
The main aim of this research is to analyse the different
landscape design solutions of building surroundings that can
prevent attacks. Landscapes have several aspects that should
be considered in design, such as cultural, functional, aes-
thetical and many other factors (Gold 2014), which should
exist beside the defensive aspect (Grosskopf 2006).
There are several researchers who have discussed burst
waves and their effects on building structures and how to
build a new building that can resist the explosion waves of
bombs. Figure 1shows the difference between surface
burst and air burst with ground reflections (Mirgal et al.
2014).
In spite of several guidelines that discuss the building
security tools by using street furniture and urban landscape
elements, there is difficulty in implementing these tools in
existing buildings, especially in the Middle East. On the
other hand, it is easy to find design guidelines that discuss
how to build a new building that considers safety issues and
decreases the effects of a terrorist attack. This could be
achieved through several design decisions, such as strategic
location, protecting perimeters, access control, setbacks,
street furniture and other tools (Koccaz et al. 2008), as
shown in Fig. 2.
There are several types of terrorist attack, such as vehicle
bombing, personal attack, vehicle collision, chemical
weapons and many other terrorist activities that affect the
social peace (Commission 2001). This paper will focus on
vehicle attacks by bombing and collision, which can be
prevented by using several urban landscape design alterna-
tives; other terrorist activities and attacks should have
another security solution. In addition, the research aims to
document several terrorist attacks in the Middle East and
analyse the existing solutions to decreasing the explosion
effects in comparison with similar experiences in the global
guidelines.
M. Felix (&)M. Elhefnawi
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Built Environment, Beirut
Arab University, Tripoli, Lebanon
e-mail: mflixe@yahoo.com
©Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
H. Bougdah et al. (eds.), Urban and Transit Planning, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17308-1_21
227
2 Security Zones of Buildings
The security zones are the areas that can be developed using
different solutions to provide security against terrorist
attacks. There are several approaches that classify the
building security zones. One of these approaches classifies
building security zones through six main zones: street zone,
parking lane zone, sidewalk zone, building yard or setback
zone, building perimeter zone and building interior zone
(Commission 2001).
This paper will focus on only three zones (building yard,
sidewalk and parking lane), which are related to urban
landscape defensive solutions, as shown in Fig. 3.
Zone 3, the building yard zone, is the area between a
building’s facade and the public sidewalk or verge. This area
is the setback space on the building land lot. The building
yard zone does not exist in many cases because of building
regulations, which allow a building’s perimeters or facade to
be allocated at the edge of the public sidewalk zone without
any setback.
Zone 4, the sidewalk zone, is the distance between the
land lot boundary and the parking lane. This zone of a street
consists of three main areas: first, the strip area or frontage
zone, which consists of the building usage area in the public
sidewalk zone; second, the footway or pedestrian zone,
which is the area of free pedestrian movement; and third, the
verge or furniture zone, which consists of vegetation ele-
ments, street furniture units and underground infrastructure
(ITDP 2011), as shown in Fig. 4. The distance of the side-
walk zone is deferential according to the hierarchy of roads.
Zone 5, the parking lane zone, is the area adjacent to the
kerb. This area has different scales depending on the car
parking positions (parallel or perpendicular to the kerb). The
parking lane is one of the most dangerous areas for terrorist
attacks by using explosive vehicles.
Zone 6, the street zone or travel zone, has different sizes
according to the road hierarchy. This area is dedicated to
movable vehicles.
3 Landscape Street Furniture as a Defensive
Tool
The concept of community safety through crime prevention
is generally based on many factors, such as physical pro-
tection through well-designed security features, suitable
access and movements by defining spaces, entrances,
observable spaces, territoriality, human activity that is suit-
able to spaces and other factors that affect community safety
(Coaffee 2016). By using this theory in Belfast between
1974 and 1984, the sixty-four bombing incidents in 1974
reduced to three bombing incidents in 1984, by decreasing
manned security gates, increasing off-street parking places,
increasing the number of fully pedestrianised streets and
increasing private sector investment (Coaffee 2016).
Streetscape elements, such as vegetation, surface mate-
rials, lighting, fences, street furniture and other elements
Fig. 1 Difference between free air burst, air burst and surface burst and the target surface relations (Geretto et al. 2015)
Fig. 2 Site protection against bombs (Smith and Hetherington 1994;
Koccaz et al. 2008)
228 M. Felix and M. Elhefnawi
(Mohareb and Felix 2017), are the same elements of street
design that can be used as defensive tools against terror-
ism. Several studies have discussed the effect of visible and
invisible security solutions for spaces security. One of
these studies classified security features into three main
types: first, overt features that serve military purposes;
second, stealthy features that are visible but not perceptible
by the public as a security feature; and third, invisible
features (Coaffee et al. 2009). More invisible security
elements create more friendly spaces for users and main-
tain the images of urban character. Regarding what has
been mentioned previously, security solutions are not
efficient solutions for terrorist attacks and crime preven-
tion, but urban and landscape solutions are more efficient.
The security vision for terrorist attacks does not consider
other important aspects, such as pedestrian movements,
aesthetics of spaces, cultural issues and other important
aspects. For example, using security barriers and military
elements can cause negative effects and urban disfiguration
(Fig. 5).
As shown in the previous section, urban landscape
solutions are more efficient than security solutions in the
urban cultural vision.
There are several types of street furniture and landscape
elements that can be used to protect spaces and buildings’
surroundings from attacks, such as bollards, sculptural ele-
ments, settings, walls, fences, topography, collapsible sur-
faces, fountains or water features, plantation elements,
flower boxes and other landscape elements.
Every zone of a street has its recommended defensive urban
landscape solutions for developing security aspects to prevent
terrorist attacks or to decrease their effect. The following sec-
tion will discuss the recommended landscape solutions for
street zones.
Area of study: zone 3, zone 4 , zone 5 and zone 6
Fig. 3 Security zones of buildings (Commission 2001); the dotted rectangle shows the studied zones (authors)
Fig. 4 Sidewalk zone (ITDP
2011)
Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive Tool for Building …229
3.1 The Building Yard Zone Defensive
Landscape Treatments
There are many treatments that could be used in the building
setback or building yard zone. First, pedestrian entry can be
controlled by fences. Whether building fences, using double
rows of trees to border the sidewalk or using controlled entry
gates, pedestrian access and pedestrian circulation on
neighbouring sidewalks can be avoided. Second, vehicular
attack can be blocked by using raised flowerboxes, vehicular
barriers and integrated landscape elements such as seating,
trees, lighting units, bollards and other landscape furniture
that could limit vehicular access to the building yard
(Commission 2001).
3.2 The Sidewalk Zone Defensive Landscape
Treatments
The sidewalk zone is dedicated to pedestrian usage only as a
public space. Due to the recent terrorist attack incidents by
using vehicles trucks to crush pedestrians in France, Spain
and other places, the sidewalk area should prevent attacks
using vehicles. The recommended landscape defensive
solutions for this zone are varied, by using street furniture
such as trees, flower boxes, street lighting, bollards, litter
receptacles, seating, kiosks and other elements of streetscape
services (Commission 2001). One of the invisible defence
tools for avoiding car attacks to the sidewalk zone is a
collapsible surface, which supports the load of pedestrians
and police houses but collapses under the load of vehicle
weight, as shown in Fig. 6.
3.3 The Parking Lane Zone Defensive
Landscape Treatments
The parking lane zone is one of the dangerous spaces that
could be used for bombing spaces and buildings by using
explosive cars, so the only treatment of this zone would be to
avoid parking completely beside any threatened buildings or
places, such as federal or religious buildings.
3.4 The Street Zone Defensive Landscape
Treatments
The area of the street that is dedicated for the flow of cars
has two options only: to be open to car access or to be closed
and turned into a pedestrian path. As shown before in the
Belfast case, more pedestrian paths lead neighbourhoods to
be more secure from terrorist attacks, but the entrance to
pedestrian paths should have landscape elements that can
block the entry of vehicles to the path (Coaffee 2016).
Fig. 5 How security solutions disfigure the urban image (authors)
Fig. 6 Collapsible surface (https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/GSA_Chapter_Two_8-8-07.pdf)
230 M. Felix and M. Elhefnawi
4 Methodology
Several bombing attacks have happened in the Middle East,
especially in religious and federal buildings. This section of
the study will document some of these attacks and the recent
precautions that have been taken to make these places more
secure by using urban landscape features.
The selection of case studies will focus on two main
cities: Tripoli, Lebanon, in the El-Salam and El-Taqwa
mosques, and Alexandria, Egypt, in Al-Qiddissin church.
The research proposes a framework of analysis that
focuses on the landscape defensive element performance in
different case studies. The case study analysis depends on
field observation to highlight the existing security treat-
ments and urban landscape solutions for future attacks.
The aim of the case study is to criticise the conflict
between security solutions and their effect on the urban
perspective. The selected case studies are in two cities in
the Middle East (Alexandria, Egypt and Tripoli, Lebanon);
these cities have similar political environment, cultural
behaviour, environmental conditions and several attack
threats.
The attacked buildings that have been chosen as the cases
for study are El-Salam mosque and El-Taqwa mosque in
Tripoli, Lebanon and Al-Qiddissin church in Alexandria,
Egypt. The case studies were selected depending on the
same use of building (both are religious buildings), each site
having had a previous car bombing attack, different types of
building yard zone (setback without fence, setback with
fence and no setback) and the similarity of security and
urban landscape vision for defensive places.
4.1 Suggested Framework
The suggested framework consists of three main phases:
documenting past attack incidents, analysing the present
security elements and criticising the conflict between the
added security elements and their efficacy in terms of
security and urban perspective aspects.
First, past terrorist attacks on these sites are documented
in terms of the urban landscape defensive elements. Second,
the new treatments of security solutions and landscape
defensive solutions in street zones after the attack are
analysed. Third, the efficiency of new security treatments
and their effect on urban aspects are criticised.
5 Case Study 1—Tripoli, Lebanon: El-Taqwa
and El-Salam Mosques Bombing
Tripoli is the capital of north Lebanon; this city has had
several wars and attacks due to political and religious
aspects. One of these terrorist attacks happened to El-Salam
and El-Taqwa mosques, which are two of the biggest mos-
ques in Tripoli city (Macaron 2016). In August 2013, two
car bombing attacks happened in Tripoli at the same time.
The attacks struck the mosques during Friday praying
(Larkin and Midha 2015). These attacks caused 40 deaths,
and 500 people were injured (Knudsen 2017) (Fig. 7).
5.1 Documenting the Landscape Features
Before the Buildings’Attack
This section will analyse the effect of landscape elements on
reducing the effects of the attacks in each mosque. First,
El-Salam mosque is located in the intersection between the
main street of Riad Elsolh, which connects Tripoli main dis-
tricts, and a secondary street. The urban landscape element that
was used at the site of the attacks was not efficient, as shown in
Figs. 8and 9. The four zones had few security treatments. In
the building yard zone, there were two rows of fences: a steel
fence, which had wide voids, and a row of small, separated
trees. These elements were not enough to protect the private
space of the building yard zone from the effect of the explosion.
The sidewalk zone, the parking lane zone and the street zone
had no treatment to defend the building or pedestrians. Parking
was allowed throughout the street, and the mobility of move-
ments was possible during Friday prayer time.
Second, El-Taqwa mosque is located in the old Tripoli
district, on Rafic El Hariri road near to Abou Ali River and
Abou Ali roundabout. The urban landscape elements before
the attack were very few in terms of facing the risk of terrorist
attack. The building yard zone only had a built fence as a
security element, while the sidewalk zone, parking zone and
street zone did not have any defensive landscape tools, as
shown in Fig. 10. Figure 9shows the location of the building.
Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive Tool for Building …231
El salam mosque
El taqwa mosque
Fig. 7 Location of El-Salam and El-Taqwa mosques in Tripoli City (authors)
Main street of Riad
Elsolh
Secondary street
El salam mosque
Fig. 8 Photographs of the site of El-Salam mosque after the attack (authors)
232 M. Felix and M. Elhefnawi
5.2 Analysing the Present Security Elements
First, with regard to El-Salam mosque, after the restoration
of the attacked mosque, there are now new security features,
and decisions regarding this site have considered how to
avoid future attacks. In the building yard zone, the fences
have been removed to provide a visual continuity with the
building entrance, which gives a sort of territorial feeling
towards the building from the community and manages the
evacuation speed to avoid jostling when exiting the building.
The sidewalk zone also has several treatments to avoid car
attacks, by adding bollards and lighting units with a small
distance between them and by increasing the level of the
pavement. At the time of Friday prayer, the army and police
prevent the possibility of car parking and traffic movement in
the adjacent streets around the mosque, to prevent any attack
during the time of crowded occupancy in the mosque
(Fig. 11).
Second, with regard to El-Taqwa mosque, after the
mosque restoration, some new landscape features have been
added. Because of the high population of the district and the
small setback of the mosque building, the ability to add
landscape elements was very limited. The building yard zone
still has a fence to allow for the prayer number in the setback
area to act as a mosque extension for Friday prayer. This
fence has large voids, which help people to see inside the
building yard zone. The sidewalk zone has added some
vegetation elements: a small number of separated trees. This
vegetation element is only used as an aesthetic aspect and
not for security reasons. The parking lane zone and street
zone have a high number of security guards during Friday
praying time, from both the army and police. Parking and
mobility access are temporarily denied at Friday praying
time (Fig. 12).
5.3 Criticism of the Case Study 1
Referring to the previous analysis, there are several approa-
ches that have been added to defend the areas of study from
future attacks. The similarity between these solutions is that
they are both dependent on security solutions from the army
and police, which block the street and parking during Friday
prayer time, along with the intensification of armed security
persons. The urban solutions between the two mosques were
different due to the density of the population between the
surrounding districts. In El-Salam mosque, the urban land-
scape solutions were more flexible and provided more terri-
toriality of the building yard zone of the mosque building
because of the absence of a fence, with the addition of street
furniture to avoid attacking the sidewalk zone, such as bollards
and lighting units. But in El-Taqwa mosque, the defensive
solution was mainly dependent on armed security. The main
negative element of the two buildings in this case study is the
traffic blocking the area around the mosques at the Friday
praying time, which causes traffic jams all over the city.
With regard to the theoretical aspect of the study, the
suggested solution for El-Salam mosque would be to
enhance more landscape features in order to increase secu-
rity without blocking traffic mobility around the mosque,
such as a collapsible surface nearby the kerb to prevent car
parking or attacking the target area of street, or turning the
side street into a pedestrian path to control the area under
guard. There are no dangers from movable mobility if it is
located on one lane of the street, so it might be better to let
the mobility flow, because the street width consists of two
lanes only. Landscape features of the sidewalk need more
enhancement, by adding vegetation elements or raised
flower boxes to act as a fence and as a second defensive line
to block any further vehicle attack.
Fig. 9 Photographs of the site of
El-Salam mosque after the attack
(authors)
Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive Tool for Building …233
El-Taqwa mosque should have more landscape treat-
ments to prevent further attacks, because the existing solu-
tion depends only on the military approach. Raised kerbs
and flower boxes could increase the security of the sidewalk
zone. The building yard zone needs two rows of trees
adjacent to each other to achieve more security for inner
prayer, given the current wide voids of the fence, which can
be attacked easily.
6 Case Study 2—Alexandria, Egypt:
Al-Qiddissin Church
Alexandria is the second biggest city in Egypt, located on the
north coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The church of the Saints,
St. Mark and Pope Peter I, which is known as Al-Qiddissin
church is located in Sidi Bishr district. At midnight on New
Abo Ali River
El- takwa mosque
Rafic El Hariri street
Abo Ali roundabout
(a)
(b)
Fig. 10 aSite of El-Taqwa mosque (authors). bPhotographs of the site of El-Taqwa mosque after the attack (authors)
234 M. Felix and M. Elhefnawi
Barriers to prevent
mobility access
Bollards
Barriers to
avoid
Lighting units
Barriers to prevent
mobility access
Fig. 11 New security treatments around El-Salam mosque (authors)
Fig. 12 Security and new treatments around El-Taqwa mosque after restoration (authors)
Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive Tool for Building …235
Al Qiddissin church
Fig. 13 Location of Al-Qiddissin church in Sidi Bishr district in Alexandria, Egypt (authors)
Fig. 14 Photographs of the site
of Al-Qiddissin church after the
attack (authors)
Year’s Eve of 2011, there was a car bombing attack to the
church of the Saints, St. Mark and Pope Peter I Coptic church
in Alexandria, which caused 23 deaths and more than 100
injuries (Heo 2012; Knell 2011) (Fig. 13).
6.1 Documenting the Landscape Features
Before the Building Attack
By analysing photographs during the attack, the absence of
defensive landscape treatments caused great damage for
buildings and people. The building was located directly in
the main road, without any setbacks. The sidewalk zone
was very narrow and had not got any landscape features
except some lighting units. Further, the height of the kerb
was very low, which could allow cars to attack the side-
walk easily. Parking for cars near the church entrances was
available, which enabled the attack by using a parked car
bomb. The car accessibility of this street was totally open
(Fig. 14).
6.2 Analysing the Present Security Elements
After the restoration of the church building, several changes
in the urban landscape have been made. On an urban scale,
236 M. Felix and M. Elhefnawi
the main street that the church exists on was changed
completely to a pedestrian path by adding barriers to the
street entrances. Further, the small streets that are perpen-
dicular to the main street are locked against car access to the
church’s main street. Figure 15 shows the church building
and the pedestrian path limits on a map of the existing site.
The sidewalk zone has new landscape vegetation ele-
ments that consist of small, separated trees. In the parking
lane zone, bollards have been added to prevent car parking.
The entrance of the church has defensive barriers and
security persons from the army and police to prevent any
future attack (Fig. 16).
Al Qeddissin church
The pedestrian path
Fig. 15 Site of Al-Qiddissin church and the pedestrian path location (authors)
Bollards to
prevent car
parking
Vegetation
elements
Defensive
barrie
rs
Church
entrances
Fig. 16 New security treatments
around Al-Qiddissin church
(authors)
Landscape Design Elements as a Defensive Tool for Building …237
6.3 Criticism of the Case Study 2
In this case study, the urban solution is more efficient
because of turning the street into a permanent pedestrian
path and putting security guards at its two end points. The
absence of a building setback makes the urban landscape
solution for the path very limited; it is dependent on small,
separated trees at the front of the building elevation and
bollards to prevent any parked cars, in case of an emergency
and a car entering the pedestrian path. The security police
and the barriers located at the front of the church gates give a
disappointing impression about the building, which appears
more as a military building rather than a religious building.
With regard to the theoretical aspect of the study, there
are several landscape elements that could be added to
enhance the security of the urban area around the church
building. The defensive barriers that are located at the front
of the church gate could be changed into landscape features,
such as a row of shrubs located behind some of the street
setting features, which could serve the same defensive pur-
pose. In an overview of the site, the pedestrian path itself
should have more landscape features to give the path more
of a territorial effect, such as benches, trees, flower boxes
and other elements located on the street zone, to prevent car
access in addition to the security guards at the street ends.
7 Conclusion
There are several studies and guidelines that have discussed
the importance of urban landscape concepts as a defensive
tool to achieve security aspects for places. The concept of
invisible security features increases the efficiency of terri-
toriality and security. Smart landscape solutions can be used
to avoid future attacks, such as collapsible surfaces, which
prevent car access to the target zones.
The urban landscape security vision can be applied to
four building zones, which are the building yard zone, the
sidewalk zone, the parking lane zone and the street zone.
Each zone has its own treatments and features to prevent car
bombing or vehicle collision.
The military visions for solutions have a bad effect on the
urban context perspective and on traffic movements.
Therefore, the urban landscape solution is more suitable and
pleasant for use in an urban context. Further, the military
solution could not provide the security for all the necessary
buildings—for example, in the area of study, only those
locations that have had a terrorist attack are now well pro-
tected, while other buildings of the same use do not have the
same attention to security. By observation, the absence of
defensive landscape elements in different levels of building
zones is directly related to the increasing numbers of victims
in each attack, despite the military guard.
The landscape treatments can not only be used as
defensive tools but can also enhance the cultural, sociolog-
ical, aesthetic and accessibility aspects, with a positive
impact on the surrounding context.
From studying the attacks on the Middle East region, the
security solutions are just a quick reaction to the previous
attacks, without an overarching plan or vision for the other
threatened areas, and the solutions do not consider the urban
landscape features as a defensive tool, but depend on the
military solution only.
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