Case study
Security
by Design
Urban Security
Challenge
At a time when terrorist attacks, police/citizen interactions and securing public space sadly are top of the news, can design help evaluate the security equipment deployed in Nice, Turin and Liège - three partner cities theater of recent, horrific terrorist attacks. Can sustainable design facilitate the integration of innovative security devices, strategies, and services into a larger context, whether urban design and planning, or society, starting with citizen engagement? Should security be part of civic education, and become a preventive strategy vs. a curative process? Can security become a topic proactively and openly discussed amongst citizens and with the police?
Solution
For this Security by design initiative, two partnership-based courses between Besign, the Sustainable Design School, PACTESUR, and European Forum of Urban Security were conducted between 2019 and 2021.
PART 1
The first chapter entitled In/Pact devised interactive street interventions, board games and citizen engagement strategies. They questioned the traditional top-down decision-making process in favor of a participatory approach to urban design, shifting perspectives by involving migrants in their user journey of Nice’s urban environment – Promenade des Anglais notably, and fostering alternative conversations on the prickly, taboo topic of terrorism.
PART 2
The second chapter, entitled Project Citiz, focused on Turin’s Piazza Veneto and Liège’s Place Saint Lambert. Project Citiz included a prevention graphic street installation, an App as exit strategy in case of emergency, a warning bracelet that functions as an alert to local police, and a shield-like barrier system to facilitate people’s flow in situation of large, dangerous crowds.
Impact
Applying the design discipline towards urban security challenges was a first. A topic traditionally kept amongst vertical, tech-oriented security experts, security benefitted here from a new human-centered viewpoint. Working in ecosystem, advocating for a multi-stakeholder engagement strategy, designers advised for a greater integration of security devices into the urban environment to avoid its “bunkerization.” Various sub-disciplines of design were leveraged as potential responses to improving urban security: graphic design to elicit universal, legible instructions, able to function in a diversity of European public realms. Game design based on “play to learn” principles to debunk myths and provoke conversations; social design that pushes citizen participation to include vulnerable populations; street furniture that simplifies security devices setup in situation of crowd management and offer a new typology of objects that could also provide efficient communication surfaces.
But the greatest impact design has had was the repeated recognition of our project in EFUS’ literature as an innovative case study, several invitations to panels during the European Security Week in Nice, participation in the annual EFUS conference (Security, Democracy & Cities, Fall 2021 in Nice) including a booth conceived and held by students showing outcomes of the two chapters of this initiative, without mentioning publications in international media.
Best practices
Context
Start with understanding the context and consider all of it: physical site specs, recent history, background stories, trauma, cultural identities, and iconic markers that make it a memorable space. Observe how people use the space today, the nature of the flows before thinking of adding security equipment.
Multiplicity for complexity
Adopt an open approach to understanding the security problem. Design shouldn’t be an afterthought in protecting public spaces. Security exists at the intersection of multiple dimensions and complex wicked problems: whether human needs, ethical principles, democracy and our relation to power, urban life, environmental standards, or cultural values– all equally meaningful, so let’s bring a multi-disciplinary, cross-sector, creative and inclusive approach.
Integration
Design can facilitate the integration of innovative security devices, strategies, and services into a larger context, whether in the urban landscape (to avoid “bunkerization”) or in society–starting with citizen engagement, and civic education, so that it can become preventive strategy rather than curative process. Security ought to be a topic proactively and openly discussed amongst citizens and with the police: design can provide a more human/user-centered, democratically addressed from all users’ points of view, not just the usual experts.
Additional links
Security by Design: towards greater integration written by Laetitia Wolff published in EFUS newsletter/website
A Safe City is An Equitable City written by Laetitia Wolff published in Oculus, AIA quarterly magazine
InPact – A Participatory Design Approach to Securing Public Space written by Arjun Rao, submitted to PD international conference, 2020
Team
TEAM 1
Mathieu Andries, Holly L. Bartley, Maxime Chef, Julian Coiffard, Enzo Jamois, Tarushee Mehra, Sacha Nouviale, Arjun Rao, Fanny Ricciardi, Matthew Slack, Stefani Takac, Tristan Terrusse, Nicolas Thomas, Agatha Verlay
TEAM 2
Jules Baudrand, Owen Cartau, Romain Desrez, Juliette Dunand, Marine Jean, Lola Mangot, Clément Pheulpin, Pauline Poirot Noémie Rocheteau Manon Roulant, Baptiste Viot, Emma Weber
Coach
Laetitia WOLFF
Partners
The Métropole de Nice, Turin and Liège, the EU-funded PACTESUR project, and EFUS (European Forum for Urban Security) Fall 2019 and Spring 2021