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2
The Committee's Charge
Over the past decade, U.S. embassy buildings throughout
the world have increasingly become the target of terrorist acts,
raising concerns about the safety of U.S. personnel and infor-
mation abroad. In response to recent acts of violence, the U.S.
Congress, by means of a supplemental appropriation, supported
efforts launched by the State Department's Office of Foreign Build-
ings Operations (FBO) to carry out an advanced physical and
technical research program. The appropriation measure stated:
The goal of this program is to design the model embassy that
will meet security, operational and program requirements and will
serve as the prototype for worldwide application. The emphasis will
be on research and development that will establish a benchmark of
minimum requirements which all future embassy designs will follow
as well as setting forth criteria for site identification.
To carry out this charge, the Assistant Secretary of State for
Administration turned to the National Research CounciT's Build-
ing Research Board (BRB). In an early planning meeting, he elab-
orated on the State Department's need for a program that would
involve a fundamental reconsideration of embassy design and con-
struction, incorporating security requirements into all aspects of
building design. Agreement was reached on the nature of this pro-
gram, and FBO then requested, and subsequently contracted for,
the advice and assistance of a BRB advisory committee.
The BRB committee was to develop "a research and develop-
ment program intended to . . . enable FBO to find the most e~ec-
tive ways to assure that an embassy building and its immediate
11
OCR for page 12
12
environment can support the performance of the post's represen-
tational, operational en c! program functions in a secure manner."
The contract that was drawn between the State Department and
the National Research Council formalizes this charge and reads,
in part: "The BRB committee will develop a research agenda to
provide the knowledge base needed for design criteria, methods of
testing, and prototype design for facilities that enable the Office of
Foreign Buildings Operations to obtain an environment that will
support the performance of program functions in a secure manner
abroad."
Although the original impetus for the committee's activities
was terrorism and threats to the safety of Foreign Service person-
nel, recent events have demonstrated that potential threats exist
also to the vital information produced, handled, and stored within
embassies. Consequently, the committee has included a wide range
of potential security threats within its scope of concerns.
Early in the course of its work, the committee concluded that
it could best render advice and assistance to the State Department
by providing recommendations for a new set of design guidelines,
requirements, and criteria. The security implications of the fol-
Towing elements of the building process were considered by the
committee:
selection of design professionals;
building programming and space planning;
site selection and site design;
architectural and structural design;
building service systems and fire safety design; and
. building operation and maintenance.
The design guidelines and criteria contained in this report and
its appendixes are based on clearly defined performance objec-
tives and on currently available scientific and technical knowledge.
When adopted by FBO and integrated with its design criteria
manuals, the committee believes these criteria and guidelines will,
as requested by Congress, provide a basis for the development and
evaluation of new embassy building prototypes. Such guidelines
and criteria should also help to ensure that the prototypes will
perform as intended but will remain open to the potential for
design innovation.
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13
The committee interpreted its charge to include nearly all
aspects of the security offuture U.S. embassy buildings.* It did not
interpret its charge as including recommendations on the present
or future composition of a U.S. Foreign Service mission; that is,
which agencies of what size and function should or shouict not
be housed in FBO-constructed facilities. The committee assumes
that such determinations are a product of U.S. government policy
and that all functions and personnel under the chief of mission will
be considered equally from a security standpoint.
Cost implications of the committee's recommendations have
been addressed only in general terms, in part because accurate,
reliable cost estunation data for building security are limited. In
addition, some of the recommendations that have been developed
represent new and innovative approaches for which costs may
be difficult to estimate. The committee believes that the State
Department ~ in the best position to make cost determinations and
that methods can be devised to resolve the estimation problems
noted above.
Midway in the committee's work, in June 1985, the report
of the Secretary of State's Advisory Pane! on Overseas Security
was issued. (The pane} was chaired by Admiral Bobby R. Unman,
USN [Ret.], and is hereinafter referred to as the Inman Panel.)
The Inman Pane! recommended that a substantial building pro-
gra~n be undertaken to Correct the security deficiencies of office
buildings of the Department of State and the other foreign affairs
agencies abroad. It also identified a total of 126 buildings that
it considered to be in need of major security upgrading or total
replacement. The urgency of these recommendations has moved
the scope of the committee's work from the embassy of the dis-
tant future to the embassy of the immediate future. In addition,
the size of the building program proposed by the Inman Panel
has led the committee, at the request of the State Department,
to make organizational and procedural recommendations to help
ensure that its other reconunendations can be Implemented in a
la~g~scale special program, as well as in FBO's annual capital
program.
* For the purposes of its work and for this report, the committee's
definition of cmbasey biding includes chanceries, consulates, and all other
buildings (excluding residences) constructed by FBO or for which the State
Department is responsible, regardless of the affiliation of the tenant. The
term also includes the land on which these facilities are located and any
factors or features external to the land or property that bear on the secure
performance of the embassy's business.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
foreign buildings
