The Burgeoning Field of Security Perimeter Design

For years, visitors to the Washington Monument on the National Mall in D.C. were greeted by Jersey barriers, those blunt concrete blockades meant to bear the brunt of a speeding car. They were stacked around the monument after the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. The barriers, and later granite replacements, sat there for nearly a decade. A whole generation of tourists to the capital must have smiling photos on America’s front lawn with terrorist deterrents in the background.

In the years following the bombings in Oklahoma City and Africa, and then Sept. 11, 2001, similar roadblocks went up around Washington and dozens of other cities, encircling anything that seemed remotely important: museums, government office complexes, national historic sites.