Protective Design Consultants
Engineering buildings and places to resist blast, vehicle, and ballistic threats — without surrendering the qualities that make them worth protecting.
Protective design has a reputation problem, and it earned it. Too many protected buildings announce themselves with blank façades, oversized setbacks, and public realm that reads as fortification. The protection is real; so is the damage to the place. Neither was necessary.
Protective requirements arrive late. The architecture pays for it.
Protective requirements typically arrive at security review, at planning, or after a client board asks the question. By then the structure is sized, the façade is procured, and the setbacks are fixed. The project faces a choice between expensive structural rework and visible defensive additions that compromise the architecture — both at multiples of what the same protection would have cost as an input to concept design, where stand-off, orientation, structural grid, and façade strategy are still decisions rather than constraints.
The earlier protective design joins the project, the more of the protective work the architecture itself can do.
The discipline, done properly, works in sequence: threat analysis defines the loads. Engineering defines the response options. Design selects the response that serves the place. The result is protection that holds up under assessment, and a building people want to be in.
Five connected disciplines
Blast assessment & mitigation
Threat-basis definition for vehicle-borne and placed charges, stand-off analysis, blast load estimation, and mitigation strategy across siting, structure, and façade. Stand-off is the dominant variable — metres of separation engineered into the site plan routinely outperform structural hardening added later, at a fraction of the cost.
Hostile vehicle mitigation
Vehicle-as-a-weapon and VBIED access analysis, vehicle dynamics assessment, and protection strategies calibrated by our peer-reviewed research into 121 global VAAW incidents. Deep enough a specialism that it carries its own practice page →
Ballistic protection
Threat-appropriate ballistic specification for façades, screens, and internal refuges — matched to credible scenarios rather than maximum available ratings.
Hardening & progressive collapse
Robustness, redundancy, and disproportionate-collapse resistance for assets where structural failure is the consequence that matters.
Performance specification & design assurance
Translating threat analysis into requirements that structural, façade, and civil packages can be designed and verified against — then reviewing the response through design gates to delivery, so protective intent survives value engineering and makes it into the built asset.
Evidence in, design out
The threat basis is evidence, not default
Most protective specification in Australia defaults to worst-case assumptions because nobody did the analysis to justify anything else. Our recommendations are calibrated to credible scenarios, drawing on Core42's published incident research. That cuts both ways: we will tell you where the default is over-built, and where it leaves a credible threat unaddressed.
We speak design
Core42's practice sits at the intersection of security engineering, criminology, and urban design. Our deliverables give architects and engineers performance targets and design freedom, not product schedules. At Barangaroo, that approach let the landscape architect lead the design response to a precinct-wide vehicle security strategy.
Decision-ready documentation
Every protective requirement carries its rationale: the scenario it addresses, the standard it references, the trade-offs it accepted. When the planning authority, the assurance review, or the board asks "why this much and not more or less," the answer is on the record.
Proportionate by conviction
We hold no supplier relationships and sell no hardware. Where the analysis says geometry, distance, or operations solve the problem, that is the recommendation you get.
From threat to built asset
Threat & load definition
Credible scenarios for the asset — vehicle, blast, ballistic, forced entry — characterised and documented as the design basis.
Vulnerability & consequence
What the threat does to this structure, this façade, these occupants, at this stand-off. Likelihood and consequence assessed separately, stated plainly.
Mitigation strategy
Options across siting, structure, façade, and operations, with the cost and design implications of each — so the decision is the client's, made with trade-offs visible.
Requirements & assurance
Performance specifications into the design packages, then staged review so protective intent survives value engineering.
Built for design teams, trusted by asset owners
Government and defence estate owners, transport and infrastructure delivery agencies, venue and precinct developers, and the design teams — architects, structural engineers, façade engineers — who need protective input that integrates with their work instead of overriding it.
We work to ISO 22343, the national Hostile Vehicle Guidelines for Crowded Places, NPSA protective security guidance, and the relevant Australian structural codes — applied as engineering inputs, not compliance checklists. Where standards conflict or fall silent, we document the interpretation and the reasoning.
See this in practice
Frequently asked questions
What is protective design?
The engineering discipline of designing buildings, structures, and public realm to resist deliberate physical threats — blast, hostile vehicles, ballistic attack, forced entry — while remaining functional, compliant, and worth inhabiting. It sits between threat analysis (which defines the problem) and architectural and structural design (which delivers the response).
When should protective design input start?
Concept design. Stand-off, siting, orientation, and structural grid are the cheapest and most effective protective measures available, and they are only available early. Projects that first consider protection at security review pay for the same outcomes in structural rework and added hardware.
Does protection have to be visible?
Mostly, no. Stand-off achieved through landscape design, vehicle restraint through engineered street furniture, and robustness through structural detailing are invisible to the public. Visible measures have their place — sometimes deterrence is the point — but visibility should be a design decision, not a side effect.
Do we need blast-rated glazing, crash-rated barriers, or ballistic walls?
The honest answer is: it depends on the threat basis, and anyone who answers before establishing one is selling product. Our analysis tells you which scenarios are credible for your asset and what each protection level buys you, so the decision is proportionate and defensible.
Can you work alongside our existing engineers and architects?
That is the default model. We define loads, performance requirements, and review criteria; your design team designs to them. Where specialist analysis is needed — blast modelling, vehicle dynamics — we deliver it as an input the team can use directly.
Start with the threat, not the catalogue
If your project has a protective requirement — or a security review that produced one — the most useful first step is a conversation about the threat basis.
Speak to a Principal30 minutes, no obligation. We'll assess fit and tell you honestly if we can help.
Built Environment Benchmark
A 10-question diagnostic of your project's security posture across governance, design integration, and threat basis, with tailored recommendations from Core42.
Take the assessment →