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How To Design Green AND Secure Buildings

The secure and the environmentally-friendly almost always conflict when designing a building. But experts at an "intelligent building" seminar demonstrated how security features can actually help make a structure green

By Bill Brenner, Senior Editor

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A building's air flow is another source of conflict between security and conservation. Green designers prefer an open air flow security planners see as an opportunity for air contamination. Rueda pointed to a middle road where the open airflow can be had while thermal imaging cameras can be used to detect possible contamination.

On the structural side, conservationists tend to prefer minimal environmental disruption and open spaces while the security folks want more protective barriers. A solution, Rueda said, is to make use of such things as trombe walls -- slabs of concrete that can be used as both a security barrier and a heating source.

"Trombe walls are useful because they provide blast protection but also absorb heat during the day, which can then be used to heat a building at little or no cost," Rueda said.

Work security in early
In the IT security world, experts often emphasize the importance of working security into the software writing process. Bolting it on later with additional software and hardware is a money-waster that tends to happen only after someone has attacked the company network. [See: Security Experts ID Top 25 Programming Errors]

Likewise, ARM President and CEO Dan O'Neill said security has to be a consideration at the very beginning of the green building design process. Security can be bolted on later, but usually that happens after the bomb blast or hurricane has done the damage.

"Security should be brought in as soon as possible, even in the master planning phase," O'Neill said, adding that UMass has enlisted his company's help in the process. "Sometimes the goals of sustainability and security conflict, but if people work together there are ways to use one to optimize the other."

But a symbiotic relationship between the green and the secure can only happen if the two sides meet early in the design phase, he said.

"If you wait until the end of the design process, you will never be able to secure the building as well as you could have," he said.