Ins and Outs of Safety

First line of defense

According to the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools’ (PASS) multilayer approach to safer school design, secure entry vestibules fall within the building perimeter layer, but this aspect of a school’s design also can support security measures in the adjacent parking lot and the classroom/interior layers.

At their most essential, secure entry vestibules are a set of doors with an interim space. These doors can be locked to delay intruders and give front desk staff an opportunity to visually assess visitors before granting access—a key recommendation for developing comprehensive school security protocols. Secure entry vestibules can be one of the first lines of defense against external threats. When they are designed with security-rated glazing, they also can help front desk staff more easily monitor potential threats in the parking lot as well as student activity in a school’s main corridors, while also providing protection against forced-entry or ballistic attacks, depending on rating.

These vestibules also may be one of the last components in a means of egress system. In some school designs, the vestibules serve as the exit point for a significant percentage of building occupants. This position makes it imperative that they are designed to comply with all fire- and life-safety codes. This can include using fire-rated door systems and materials, including glass, and code-compliant hardware for maintaining egress requirements.

Because they are essential within their own layer and support security measures in adjacent layers, secure entry vestibules help establish a baseline of security in safer school design. To support their effectiveness, the International Code Council’s (ICC) Ad Hoc Committee on Building Safety and PASS have outlined multiple considerations for the design of these vestibules—including meeting code-driven requirements for fire and life safety.

Effective designs

Determining which designs are most appropriate depends on context, so architects are encouraged to work with security professionals and school administrators to help them arrive at more informed decisions about nearly every aspect of a security entry vestibule’s design.

In general, a secure entry vestibule should include code-compliant and accessible locking hardware to prevent unauthorized access and comply with Americans with Disability Act (ADA) standards. Likewise, the design should let staff view visitors without giving them access to the school’s interior. This can be accomplished with security-rated glazing. As noted in the final report from the ICC Ad Hoc Committee on Building Safety, specifying security-rated glass in exterior doors and openings between the front desk and vestibule can increase the level of surveillance into and beyond the vestibule without weakening it.

Selecting the appropriate security-rated glazing for a vestibule may be difficult because there is no nationally recognized standard for building security. Specifiers are urged to work with security experts and credible resources to determine which ratings will fit their security goals most effectively.

Again, enhanced building security is a goal, but because these vestibules are often a part of an egress route, that may necessitate code-compliant fire-rated design. Because these systems may need to defend against multiple threats, it is important for building professionals to specify materials that do not compromise one form of protection for another.

Common challenges

One of the central challenges in planning a secure entry vestibule is balancing controlled ingress with free egress requirements. This is why credible resources for safer school design often include descriptions like “code-compliant” and “accessible” in recommendations for hardware—including electronic locking hardware. 

But code compliance for free egress systems goes beyond door hardware. Some vestibule designs also may need to include fire-rated materials because of path-of-egress requirements or compartmentalization strategies. When local codes require fire-rated materials in areas that would benefit from security-rated ones, it is essential that specifiers use components that are known to be compatible, or multifunctional, fire-rated glazing that has been tested as a system to multiple standards. This is because security-rated components are not necessarily tested to fire rating standards and so could inhibit the ability of a full system to defend occupants in the event of a fire.

Further, because these components are often plastic-based, they can burn quickly and intensely, often exceeding fire-test parameters and inhibiting or potentially negating the ability of fire-rated materials to protect occupants. Taking this precaution when specifying glazing systems helps ensure the glass and frames will perform as intended.

In addition, specifiers may have difficulty navigating and selecting the right products to meet a project’s security goals. They may overestimate the level of protection that security films offer or misinterpret data provided by security test standards. Because of these challenges, project stakeholders should discuss their goals as well as the pros and cons of each avenue toward enhancing school security.

Collaborating on design

The complexity and challenges represented in designing secure entry vestibules may occur in other areas of the built environment, especially in districts that require fire-rated doors in all openings that lead to exit corridors. If model building codes included best-practice recommendations for secure entry vestibules and other parts of the built environment, they could provide a standard guide for specifiers.

Until then, it is important for project teams to collaborate in identifying which security measures are needed most immediately and how to carry out these measures without compromising a building’s code compliance. Doing so can lead to safer and more secure entry vestibules and school facilities in general.