Landscape architects now design for mass shootings

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With mass shootings on the rise, an unexpected group of professionals is trying to make it easier for people to avoid getting killed in the melee: landscape architects. These are the people who place just so many oversized planters on a pedestrian thoroughfare to prevent an attack by car bomb from hitting the crowd or the buildings behind the barricades. And one of their first design challenges is the new Sandy Hook Elementary School, built to replace the site of the infamous 2012 massacre.

During the school day, visitors have to pass through the gap in a rain garden to get to the hardened entrance, and they can be observed from inside during the approach, thanks to the Svigals + Partners design. Once inside, the doors close, and classroom doors deadbolt automatically. Windows are coated with a special hardened glaze, so that even if the window is shot, it would take an attacker 10 to 15 minutes with a sledgehammer to force open a hole big enough to crawl through. Delay animates everything about the design, to buy time for the people inside and mitigate the harm an attacker can commit while waiting for rescuers to arrive.

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