Design Features of Suburban Shopping Mall - Essay Example

Student’s Name] [Instructor’s Name] [Class] Design features of a suburban shopping mall according to the principles of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). Consciously or sub-consciously, human beings react to the environment on a continuous pattern. These reactions to the surroundings may help in deploying better safety measures for the community. This leads to a decrease in criminal activity and makes places such as homes, offices, shops and malls safer for both consumers and commercial entrepreneurs as well. The better security infrastructure helps the government and its legal bodies to control and manage places with possible crimes and eventually would have to spend less on crime prevention (Hearnden & Moore, 1999). The concept of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is built upon the same philosophy of turning the environment into a less lucrative opportunity for criminals. This would result in a better quality of life and people would be aware of better crime prevention strategies. Where crime prevention may be used as a tool to identify the possibility of a crime that can be committed so a precautionary step may be taken to prevent the crime form happening or reducing its magnitude (Hearnden & Moore, 1999). CPTED defines the process of prevention of crime by elaborating on the studies of the ways sites may be designed. These structures are built through collaboration with engineers, architects, planners and the end consumers along with all government law authorities to create security definitions. New methodologies are created along with developments on the old ones to integrate the processes that are necessary to make places crime proof (Hearnden & Moore, 1999). Many professionals related to the designing of the physical buildings of different types have always taken into account the possibilities of hazards relating to fire, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters. However, more recently, these structural engineers and architects have been made aware to consider crimes that are committed in the community not as a luck or fate, but more of a man made hazard. Furthermore, more and more research and standards have directed the designing of these structures as to be consistent in dealing with crime through the quality of the design on the structure and the environment it is set in (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). It is important for the local business setups to flourish if the community in its surrounding has to grow as a clean and safe place for people to live and bring up their children. But for the local businesses operations to be successful it is imperative for them to operate in a safe and insured environment not only for themselves but for the consumers as well. Shopping malls, office commercial entities, individual retail operations, public service areas, restaurants and hotels, drive-through ATMs and other services are all naked to the threat of criminal activity. The shopping malls may be the centre for public access and act as a centre of many functions of daily life, it may suffer the greatest threat form the criminal activity because of its nature of public access at all times (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Shopping malls are faced with crimes that may happen in relation to the public damage, damage pf property, individual robbery or loss, theft in stores and the parking lot crimes. As it is open for public it has a high rate of the presence of undesirable users that are present and this number increases as the mall gains more and more popularity and size. Therefore, it is very important for structural designers and architects to infuse the concepts of CPTED and its principles in the design of any shopping mall (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). The three main principles that govern the measures of security in shopping malls may be classified as: Natural surveillance, natural access control and territoriality. Natural surveillance is the key concept, which directs the architects and engineers in the development of the physical features and placement of activities and people using the mall in such an order that visibility is maximised for the building. Such a placement to maximise visibility is implemented to ward off unwanted people with intentions of crime or even f they are present, they can be easily observed. Such measures of observations will keep crime in check and any development in the activities of such a criminal can be countered before a harmful act may be committed (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Furthermore, an observational check on crime will also make the people present in the mall feel safer and the sense of security is heightened when they know everything is being monitored. Natural surveillance may be implemented by keeping the windows of all shops free of any tints to allow a broad surveillance perspective from within and outside the stores present in the mall. Similarly, the doors and windows should be avoided to be used as place holders for advertisements and even if they are to be used, the advertisements should be small in size and below or above the eye level needed to see across the mall floor (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Convex mirrors may be used around corners along the pathways of the mall to help security personnel and general public to see in the hidden corners before they approach it. These mirrors may also be used inside the shops to help the sales staff easily keep an eye on the unmonitored areas and sections in the store. Loading areas should be designed so that there are no places available for people with criminal intentions to hide themselves or the merchandise that they have stolen. Furthermore, all the entrances and exits of the building should be under constant monitoring through electronic or visual methods. This will deter anyone running away after committing a crime and will also discourage criminal activities to take place (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Natural surveillance may also be applied to the outside of the mall and the parking areas should be designed to maintain visibility across the entire lot. Provisions should be made available for the parking areas to be illuminated in the dark with well-lit light poles. Along with lighting, there should not be any obstacles which may be used as hiding corners to surprise the to-be victim in the parking lot. Parking lots may be designed in such a way that cars use perpendicular parking instead of parallel to increase visibility between the parked cars (Colquhoun, 2004). The second major concept in designing a CPTED based shopping mall is the natural access control guidance principle. This principle helps in the prevention of crime by controlling the movement of the people who come in and out of a shopping mall. This movement is controlled by the judicial placement of all the points of entry and exit into a shopping mall. Along with these access routes, any forms of fencing or barricades, the nature of landscaping and the affect of lighting structures are also taken into account (Colquhoun, 2004). These settings are used under the guidelines of CPTED to make it difficult for criminals to access the possible targets they may have a general view as easy preys. This is done by making a perception for the criminals that none of their perceived targets will be using a behind or dark alley as a route to get to their destination. Criminal activity is reduced by directing people to take routes that are marked clearly in public places and they are moved on the specific route with warning to not to enter the areas that are hard to keep under surveillance. People are encouraged to use the designated access doors in and out of the shopping mall. Sidewalks around the building along with the landscaping and gateways are marked properly and people are discouraged to use non public areas of the shopping mall (Colquhoun, 2004). Moreover, using these guiding principles, the parking lots may be divided into smaller lots using landscaping and hence make them easier to monitor. Loading zones may be specified a certain time frame for their function and may be placed as a separate areas outside the shopping mall. Rooftop access may also be restricted to the use of official administrative personnel only and may not be shared with adjacent buildings. These CPTED measures can also be incorporate inside individual shops through locating the checkout counters at the front of the store. This will help the employees watch not just the store but the activities developing in the shopping mall as well. this all can be further developed by placing relevant signage for operating hours, parking, exits and entrances, security information and complaints throughout the building (Colquhoun, 2004). The third concept in CPTED is the correct deployment of physical attributes that send out a message of ownership in the general public. Territoriality is implemented by giving people- the owners of individual shops in a mall, a feeling of personal responsibility and ownership of their locality. Since people would be more responsible for the things they are made to feel more responsible towards, so the environment should also be designed and developed in such a way that the individual shop owners in the shopping mall may feel involved in every process of controlling crime (Fennelly, 2003). Individual shop owners and staff are motivated to develop a feeling of control over the area inside their shop and in the surrounding as a part of the safety regulation that may be fostered in them. Along with individual shop owners, the same feeling may also be fostered in the consumers through the proper use of landscaping and a sense of personal service and duty to the society to take action against criminal activities and opportunities that may arise (Fennelly, 2003). Apart from the three main guiding forces that may be derived form CPTED, there are a few other key features that affect the control of security in shopping malls. Crime may be prevented in shopping malls by encouraging interaction of the public within and outside the mall premises. This process is called activity support. Any event may be tuned into the timing of the shopping mall when the attendance of the public would be minimal. Along with activity support is maintenance of the facilities of the shopping mall (Fennelly, 2003). Continued maintenance of the facilities in the shopping mall, especially those related to the security would make crime prevention efficient. However, it is imperative that the shopping mall is designed in such a way that the lights, cameras, doors and other electrical equipment including wiring and alarms are easy to replace and check for defects. CPTED structures and guidelines provide an impressive way of improving the way a building may be used to infuse better security measures in the natural habitat of the building it is being implemented for (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Over time, the more conventional security measures- such as locks and alarms, have been an integral part of crime prevention. But they alone cannot provide a comprehensive control of crime and must be incorporated with the CPTED concepts. However, the presence of visible locks and other hardened security measures may give a feeling of an area having a crime anticipation ad ward off consumers and businesses from the location. These areas of target hardening of having heavy visible security presence in shopping mall make many uncomfortable and may ward off criminals but at the expense of making the place unfriendly (Vallani & Nahoun, 2001). Security measures can be modified to adopt to the serenity of the environment through having small digital camera security networks throughout the mall and in the parking lot. Employees in the mall can be used for the purpose of basic security as well through extra training. Crime prevention messages may also be pasted in the individual shops, which tell that the employees have no control on the cash deposit safes. Emergency phone systems may also be deployed in the parking lots and inside the malls which are linked directly to the security response teams. All of the above strategies according to the CPTED are the key concepts which are integrated together to make the environment more secure and better for public presence. However, there may not be any system that is defined that can make any area or shopping mall completely free of any sort of crime. The guidelines of CPTED are only present to comparatively reduce the amount of criminal activity the inside the physical location and in its associated environment. The concepts of CPTED may be deployed in the designing phase of all buildings to ensure that the businesses, government and the public do not have to incur a higher financial loss in the future. Works Cited: Colquhoun, I. (2004). Design Out Crime: Creating Safe and Sustainable Communities, Architectural Press Fennelly, L. (2003). Effective Physical Security, Butterworth-Heinemann Hearnden, K. & Moore, A. (1999). The Handbook of Business Security, Kogan Page Vallani, K. & Nahoun, J. (2001). Applied Crime Analysis, Butterworth-Heinemann Read More