Greatest Hurdle Is Securing Existing Federal Buildings
One of the biggest challenges facing designers of U.S. embassies and other federal facilities is the retrofit of existing buildings to meet tightened security standards. But officials say that for the design of newer buildings, tougher criteria have been in place for years. "We already had a heightened posture toward security," says Charles E. Williams, director and chief operating officer of the U.S. State Dept.'s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Washington, D.C.
For the U.S. General Services Administration, the 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the "defining moment," says Ed Feiner, chief architect at GSA, also in Washington. The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "accentuated the need to move forward with what we had already started."