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Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
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Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
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Page 15
Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
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Page 16
Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
×
Page 17
Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"3 The Committee's Work Approach." National Research Council. 1986. The Embassy of the Future: Recommendations for the Design of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9806.
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Page 20

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

3 The Committee's Work Approach COMMITTEE STRUCTUR.lit Much of the committee's work was carried out through sum committees assigned to areas of special concern, a structure that was adopted to use to the maximum extent possible the variety of skins of the committee's members. Each subcommittee is de- scribed below; the information provided includes its membership, its areas of responsibility, and the affiliations of the federal agency liaison representatives to the committee. (The role of the federal representatives is described later in this chapter.) Subcommittee 1: Overview and Integration Charge: To review and oversee the work of all other subcom- mittees; to undertake study of such special matters as may from tune to time arise out of subcommittee work and from the deliber- ations of the committee as a whole; to study the adm~n~tration of design and construction programs of the Office of Foreign Build- ings Operations (FBO) and to recommend unprovements; and to examine the cost and procurement aspects of the committee's recommendations. Members: David R. Dibner (committee and subcommittee chair), Robert C. Brewster, Brian M. Jenkins, Michael R. Morris (cost control and procurement aspects) Federal agency liaison representatives: None 14

15 Subcommittee 2: Site Security Considerations Charge: To assess current methods and criteria for the selec- tion of new embassy sites; to recommend Improvements in the site selection process that enhance security and other considerations; to identify areas where research is needed to improve the security of embassy sites; to monitor the conduct of committee-sponsored research work in these areas; and to develop security-related plan- ning and design criteria for new embassy sites. Members: Christopher Degenhardt (subcommittee chair), Michael Morris Federal agency liaison representatives: Robert Burke and Bart Rinehart (Smithsonian Institution), Robert Furiong (U.S. Air Force), William McCoDough (State Department) Subcommittee 8: Building Structure, Envelope, Fenestration and Internal Functional Relationships Charge: To review existing criteria and guidelines related to building structural, envelope, and fenestration systems and to recommend modifications where appropriate, initiating and over- seeing research as necessary; to review existing building program- rning guidance with respect to internal functional relationships and adjacencies, recommending changes where appropriate; and to consider the potential unplications of security considerations for architectural form and building planning. Members: Stuart L. Knoop (subcommittee chair), Leslie E. Robertson, Seymour A. Bortz 1' Federal agency liaison representatives: Michael Yachnis (Naval Facilities Engineering Command), Donald B. Baldwin (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Samuel E. Duncan (Veterans Admin- istration), Peter E. Gurvin (State Department) Subcommittee 4: Criteria for the Design of Service and Secu- rity Systems for future U.S. Embassy Buildings Charge: To review all existing FBO design criteria related to access control, security monitoring, and building service systems;

16 to identify security considerations related to building service sys- tems; and to develop needed additional security-related design criteria related to the above. Members: Richard T. Baum (subcommittee chair), Richard A. Day, John C. Pignato Federal agency liaison representative: John Moyer (General Services Administration) Subcommittee B: Potential Threats to the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings Charge: To develop for use by the committee as a whole, and as an element in the final report, a characterization of potential threats to the security of future U.S. embassy buildings, based to the extent possible on knowledge gained from past experience and available general intelligence; to recommend a committee pm sition, to be communicated to the State Department, on future security threats; and to respond to and challenge design criteria recommendations emerging from the other subcommittees. Members: Brian M. Jenkins (subcommittee chair), Richard A. Day, John C. Pignato Federal agency liaison representatives: John Moyer (General Services Administration), Donald B. Baldwin (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) FEDERAL AGENCY LIAISON REPRESENTATIVES One of the committee's most valuable resources was the active participation of its federal agency liaison representatives. Many government agencies must address security concerns in the design of their buildings; ~d although such concerns are not identical to those of the State Department, nevertheless shed light on the po- tential of the federal building process to respond to unique building needs. The federal agency liaison representatives to the committee contributed knowledge from other areas of the government com- munity and reported on research that is directly applicable to the committee's work, including the following: . Naval Facilities Engineering Command and Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory~tructural design;

17 ~ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-security and survivability planning for sensitive installations and facilities; U.S. Air Force physical security planning and design; ~ Veterans Administration-contract administration and se- curity design criteria development; · National Bureau of Standards structural design and life safety; . Smithsonian Institution~ecurity planning and manage ment for public buildings; U.S. Postal Service contraband detection and parcel man- agement; and . General Services Administration-security planning, crite- ria development, and design and management for public buildings. THE STUDY PROCESS Each subcommittee began its work with an extensive review of existing FBO design criteria and other State Department publica- tions, including the following: Chancery Building Program; Plan- ning Procedures and Engineering Criteria; Fire Protection Design Criteria; Lock Hardware and Barrier stan~aT]~;* and various ad- denda provided by the State Department's Office of Security and Office of Communications, among others. During the course of the committee's work, the State Department also made available various reports that were applicable to the current effort but that had been prepared under separate contracts. To provide a centralized technical reference collection, the staff of the Building Research Board assembled the materials }toted above and other relevant reference matter: reports, criteria, and documents from other federal agencies, and security directories, manuals, handbooks, and pertinent documents available in the general literature. This collection gave the committee some per- spective on the current state of the art with regard to building design for security and enabled it to identify: (a) those provisions * U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations, Chancery Building Program (January 1982~; U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Buildings Operations, Planning Procedurce and Engineering Criteria (October 1983~; U.S. Department of State, Oflice of Foreign Buildings Oper- ations, Fire Protection Design Criteria (March 1981~; U.S. Department of State, Office of Security, Lock Hardware and Barrier Standards (December 1983~.

18 within existing FBO design criteria that are in need of modifica- tion to meet security requirements; and (b) needed provisions not presently contained in these design criteria. The full committee met eight tunes during the course of the study to further define and meet its objectives and to integrate the work of the various subcommittees, leading to the drafting of this report. The subcommittees met approximately twice as often as the full committee. The following is a chronology of committee meetings and a brief summary of the work that was accomplished: . On November 15, 1984, the BRB invited interested guests to be briefed by senior State Department officials on the depart- ment's building program and their security concerns regarding building design. The advisory committee composition and study plan were discussed. On December 12, 1984, the first full committee meeting was held. The National Research Council policy for the selection of committee members that is, seeking a proper balance of interests and biases was discussed. The committee received an update on the State Department's building program and was briefed by committee member experts on world terrorism trends and the blast resistance of structures. On January 1~17, 1985, the full committee and subcom- m~ttees met to discuss the possible classification of the final re- port and to receive further background on the State Department's Chancery Building Program and Fire Protection Criteria docu- ments. At this meeting the concept of performance criteria was adopted by the committee as the approach for developing guide- lines and criteria. ~ At the March 15, 1985, meeting, the major subject of discussion was the preliminary report of the Inman Panel, in par- ticular the unplications of its recommendation for a large building program. Subcommittees reported on their progress, and a series of issues was identified as being of common interest to ad members. ~ In its meeting of May 8, 1985, the committee outlined the tasks required of various consultants and contractors and discussed the overall structure and scope of planned project documents. An update on threat characterizations was presented. At this meeting the committee focused its efforts on security-related aspects of design criteria. . .

19 ~ On July 18, 1985, the committee heard detailed briefings from one of its major consultants, the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Foreign Buildings Operations described to the committee the implications of the Inman Pane} recommendations on FBO operations. ~ On September 18, 1985, the committee reviewed the draft outline of the final report and heard reports on the progress of the various subcommittees. The committee received a detailed briefing on vehicle bomb incidents worldwide and moved toward definition of bom~related threats. In October 1985, a steering group was formed to oversee development of the committee's draft final report. The steering group included all members of subcommittee ~ and the chairmen of all other subcommittees. The draft final report was reviewed first by the steering group, acting on behalf of the committee as a whole; it was then circulated for additional review and comment by the entire committee. ~ On November 21, 1985, the last full committee meeting was held to review and approve the draft report, to assess the status of other documents in preparation by the various subcommittees, and to discuss future activities. The members of the Committee on Research for the Security of Future U.S. Embassy Buildings brought to their efforts a broad base of experience and familiarity with embassy design. Prior to the formation of the committee, many embassies had been visited, on a professional basis, by a number of committee members acting in other capacities and by BRB staff. In addition, after the formation of the committee, the committee members and staff made official visits abroad to the following U.S. posts: Cairo, Athens, and Lisbon (March 1985~; Vienna (August 1985~; Ankara, ~ r, and Istanbul (August 1985~; and ~ Bonn and Paris (August 1985~. On the visit to Turkey, which was made at the request of the State Department, committee members and BRB staff joined a site selection team that was charged with evaluating sites for a replacement embassy in Ankara and replacement consulates in ~ r and Istanbul. This visit yielded findings specific to the site selection process and was especially valuable in the preparation of the report of the subcommittee on site security considerations.

20 The committee alao had the benefit of extensive briefings by State Department personnel and by personnel from other agencies with experience in security and building design. In addition, these briefings included the following: ~ interviews with State Department staff from the Office of Communications, the Office of Security, and the Fire Protection, Interior Design, and Architecture divisions of FBO; tion; briefing on site design measures by the Mobil Oil Corpora ~ guidance on fire protection by stab from the National Bu- reau of Standards, Center for Fire Research; ~ briefings from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Research Laboratory; ~ briefing from a State Department contractor regarding work on designing windows; and briefing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory on ad- vanced technical research and development counterterror~sm pros grams. These briefings were invaluable to the committee in enhancing its understanding of certain technical issues and in ensuring that it had been made aware of the most up-to-date information available through public and private channels.

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