Security design
Security is the first and last thing most people touch in your building. Let's get it right.
Every entrance, every access-controlled door, every delivery and every visitor passes through the security design. When it is treated as a sub-discipline of the MEP package, the result is familiar: systems that frustrate the people they are meant to protect, budgets that move late, and a contractor pricing ambiguity as risk.
The appointment
One consultancy, strategy to handover
A full security design appointment with Toren Consulting Ltd covers whichever of RIBA Stages 1 to 6 your project needs, on a lump sum per stage; the earlier we start, the more the design can shape the outcome rather than being added to it. The scope covers what a security workstream actually needs:
RIBA 1 and 2: Risk & Strategy
Security risk assessment and facility security strategy, produced early enough to shape site layout, entrance strategy and core positions, not redesigned at cost once they are fixed.
RIBA 3 and 4: Design & Specification
Physical security review, electronic security design and specification, and BIM authoring in Revit alongside your design team. Counter-terrorism measures such as blast engineering and hostile vehicle mitigation are delivered with specialist associates where the risk assessment calls for them.
RIBA 5 and 6: Construction
Specialist contractor procurement support, construction phase assurance, design review and installation tracking, witness testing and handover. We design for buildability and hold your contractors to time and quality.
Cost certainty
We give your QS the number an area rate can't
An area rate based on previous "similar" projects is a sound starting point for most cost planning, but security does not scale with floor area: it is driven by scope, risk and operational intent. Two identical buildings can carry very different security budgets, and the difference is decided in design, not on site. We work alongside your QS to turn that starting point into a number they can rely on.
We give you a bespoke, itemised security budget at each project stage, and we work to it. When the design changes, the budget moves with it visibly, not as a variation claim two years later.
Continuity
A handover that doesn't lose anything
As the project moves from risk and strategy into detailed design, our risk and strategy lead hands over to our design and engineering lead, briefed and coordinated internally rather than re-explained to someone new. The senior consultants named in your proposal lead the work throughout; junior staff support them, they do not replace them. Security design is the whole of what we do, not a smaller part of a wider multi-disciplinary practice, and that focus carries through the whole appointment.
Recent work
Projects like yours
99 City Road, London
A 38-storey commercial tower (plus basement levels) at Old Street for Endurance Land. Early engagement with the police Designing Out Crime Officer and Counter Terrorism Security Advisor, Secured by Design (SBD) condition compliance, hostile vehicle mitigation in the public realm, and a Stage 3 electronic security design pack.
Brent Cross Town Plots 12 to 15, London
Appointed across all residential plots for Related Argent. Support towards SBD certification, concierge-led visitor management design, and cross-plot interoperability so build-to-rent operations work as one estate rather than four buildings.
"Toren provided security risk assessment and design for Black Lion House, from Concept through to Detailed Design. Toren also helped the project to achieve the BREEAM Hea 06 Security credit, and managed meetings with police security stakeholders in support of planning. Toren and their associate consultants ensured that coordination and detailed design were completed to a high standard."
FAQs
Questions we're often asked
When should we appoint a security consultant?
Before the decisions that drive security cost are made, and most of those are made in RIBA Stages 2 and 3: site layout, entrance strategy, core positions. Appointed then, security shapes the design; appointed at Stage 4 or later, it can usually only be added to the design, and additions cost more than choices.
Do you sell or install the systems you specify?
No. We design and specify, support procurement, then hold the installer to the specification through construction. Nothing we recommend earns us a margin, so the design is driven by the project's risk, not a sales target.
Will you tell us we need counter-terrorism measures?
Only if the risk assessment supports them. Most projects need no blast engineering or hostile vehicle mitigation, and we do not specify them by default; where the risk justifies them, specialist associates deliver them under the same appointment.
How do you work with the rest of the design team?
As members of it, not reviewers. We author models, drawings and specifications in Revit alongside your design team, and we coordinate the dependencies that security creates, power, containment and data among them, with the MEP engineer rather than leaving them to surface on site.
How do you charge?
A lump sum per RIBA stage, fixed against an agreed scope. There is no rate card because there is no standard building: tell us the site, the stage and the programme, and we will price the work itself.
Getting started is simple
Tell us about your project. We reply quickly with a fixed-fee proposal wherever the scope allows. Then the security workstream is handled: strategy and risk assessment, coordinated design and specification your contractor can price and build without ambiguity, the BREEAM security credit where the project pursues it, and assurance through construction to witness testing and handover.
Only need part of this? See our standalone BREEAM SNAs, Crime Impact Statements and SBD support.