Landscape design elements as a defensive tool for building security

Abstract

All over the world, many types of building and spaces have been targeted to be more secure because of the current political, social and cultural situation. Urban cultural landscape can support the necessary condition of social security. Landscape design elements have many purposes, such as functional, environmental and aesthetical aspects. One of these purposes is to ensure the defensive role that the design could apply to different zones of building security. The balance between security aspects and other aspects of landscape design is a must to achieve effective risk reduction without losing the identity of a building’s surrounding spaces. This paper aims to observe and analyse the efficiency of landscape elements in acting as defensive tools, through the different levels of security building zones (such as building parameter, building yard, sidewalks, parking line and street) in several case studies in the Middle East.