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Access Control

Definition

Design that channels how people enter and move through a space, so that legitimate routes are obvious and illegitimate ones are difficult or exposed.

Related terms

CPTED
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. An applied design discipline using natural surveillance (sightlines, lighting), territorial reinforcement (ownership cues), natural access control (barriers,...
Defensible Space
Oscar Newman's 1972 concept describing a residential layout that lets residents naturally supervise and feel ownership over the space around their homes.
Natural Surveillance
Design that keeps sightlines open so that ordinary occupants can see, and be seen by, people moving through a space, without relying...
Territorial Reinforcement
Design cues, such as low fences, signage or landscaping, that mark a space as privately claimed and signal that a stranger's presence...
C. Ray Jeffery
The criminologist who coined the term CPTED in his 1971 book Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.
Jane Jacobs
The urban writer whose 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities argued that informal street watchfulness, or eyes on...
Oscar Newman
The architect who studied New York public housing and published Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design in 1972.
Second-Generation CPTED
An extension of first-generation CPTED that adds social cohesion, community culture, connectivity and threshold capacity alongside the original physical strategies.

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