Finding a Starting Point: Doing the Risk Assessment
Before a designer can recommend security measures for a facility, he or she must understand what people and propertythe "assets" in security parlanceneed to be protected.
Usually this assessment is quite straightforward, but the task gets complicated when trying to predict where threats may come. This knowledge has a direct bearing on what kinds of damage the designer must attempt to mitigate. "You can't even do the simplest facility assessment until you know what the threats are. What's the point?" says Bill McCarthy, an associate architect with RTKL in Baltimore. "You don't know whether you're protecting from a bomb-laden vehicle or a mere natural disaster."