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Lecture notes
Department of Architecture, Cornell University

ARCH 2614/5614 Building Technology I: Materials and Methods

Jonathan Ochshorn

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Building security and communication systems

References:

9/11 as trigger for renewed interest in building security


video link
WTC floor plans with egress stairs
Typical upper-level floor plan, World Trade Center tower

Potential conflict between freedom and security?

Balancing security and openness in public buildings.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1999): "Architecture is inescapably a political art, and it reports faithfully for ages what the political values of a particular age were. Surely ours must be openness and fearlessness in the face of those who hide in the darkness. Precaution, yes. Sequester, no. There is a risk to such a conversation. Call for more openness, and the next day there may be a new atrocity. But more is at stake than personal reputation. The reputation of democratic government is at stake."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan  Benjamin Franklin

not Benjamin Franklin on democracy (misattributed): "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
wolves and lamb  Benjamin Franklin on $100 bill
[image source for wolves and lamb]

Benjamin Franklin, circa 1775: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Jeremy Bentham, circa 1791: Panopticon—humane reform or insidious form of surveillance:
Bentham's panopticon, plan and section, drawn in 1791
"In 1975 Foucault used the panopticon as metaphor for the modern disciplinary society in Discipline and Punish. He argued that the disciplinary society had emerged in the 18th century and that discipline are techniques for assuring the ordering of human complexities, with the ultimate aim of docility and utility in the system.[30] Foucault first came across the panopticon architecture when he studied the origins of clinical medicine and hospital architecture in the second half of the 18th century. He argued that discipline had replaced the pre-modern society of kings, and that the panopticon should not be understood as a building, but as a mechanism of power and a diagram of political technology." (Wikipedia)

Building security

Identify threats and weaknesses (vulnerabilities)