‘The Economist June soth 2018, School design Brutalism ‘Can architecture help preventschool shootings? The NRA thinks so 66] TIScalledalockdown dril,”saysMax, nine-year-old pupil at a private school on the Northside. "Oneteacherpre- tends to be an intruder, We have to hide in classroom, turn over our desks and hide behind them. We have to lock the door, barricade all the heavy stufin front of the door and take a book or aruler so we can throw it at the intruder ifhe comes in. We hhave tobe super quiet. Ifsomeone saysitis safe to come out we cannot do that, be- cause it could be the intruder. We have to ‘wait forthe principal to come knocking on the doorto ell usitis safe to come out.” ‘This year has already seen the murder in February of 17 at Florida's Marjory Sto- neman Douglas High School, which had regularly held lockdown drilis for years. ‘On May 18th a student at Santa Fe High School in Texas killed ten of his peers and ‘wounded7s with a shotgun and arevolver. Inthe daysafterthe Santa FemassacreDan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant gover not of Texas, made two suggestions. One ‘waste echo President Donald Trumps cll to atm teachers with concealed weapons (many teachers abhor the idea of being armed). The other way he suggested 10 make schools safer was by reducing the number of entrances to one of two (how childzen might flee such a place was not apparently a major consideration) ‘Mr Pariek’s proposal might sound ba- nanas, but somenew schools arein fact de- signed withthe prevention of mass shoot- ‘ngsin mind. The average American school is 44 years old, built long before school shootings were a concem. im French, an architect with DER Group who specialises ‘nbuilding schools sayshis trade can help, Dutomly up to apoint."The worstthing we ‘ean do sto tutn our schools into prisons, he says. (ptr also designs prisons) The recently redesigned school in Sandy Hook, site of the deadliest school shooting to date, has a news light‘filed building shaped like an “e” to maximise the number of evacuation routes, t has three entrances that can be reached from parking areas by foot bridges, allowing Staff to monitor comings and goings. The school's ground floor is elevated, making t difficult to see inside classrooms from the ‘outside. Each classroom has locks and se- ceuity doors as well as windows with im- pactresistant glass Sandy Hook is a special case, as the brief for its architects was to build some- thingthatcould withstand another horrific ‘Sandy Hook’s new school, attackon the school. Connecticutprovided f grant of $som for the latest in anti-error measures designed to “delay, detect and deter" an armed intruder. A similar case is aJewish schoolin Las Vegas, sponsored by Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate, and built by Mr French's fim. The task was to make it terrorstproof, says Mr French, ‘who cannot disclose more details. The National Rifle Association (Naa) produced a 225-page report in 203, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, which it dusted off after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. The NRA sug {gests limiting entry to a single point; build Inga prison-style fence the reportshowsa photo ofa deficient fence juxtaposed with one that would have made GDR border ‘guards proud); banning greenery outside schools because intruders may hide in Immigration policy United States 39 luees and bushes or use them to cut through the aforementioned fence; and making do without windows, or only small anes with ballistic protective glass. Front offices should be protected with two sels of automatically locking doors to create an “entrapment area! At the end of the report isa draft for a law to allow schools to atm theis teachers, Sadly i lacks any estimate of the cost of ‘hardening” America's mote than100,000 schools, but it would probably run into hundreds of millions of dollars for each slate, ata time when schools in Detroit have leaking roofs and schools in Balt zmoteare unable taheattheirlassroomsin winter. According to estimates by the American Society of Civil Engineers, ‘America’s school infrastructure is under- funded by about $38 billion a year. When good men do nothing ‘America’s immigration systemis the result of decades of dodging hard decisions ESSthan ten milesseparatetworoomsin Medllen, a modest, low-shing eity on ‘the Mexican border. The frst is Ursula, an immense warehouse which squatsbehind high brick wall, almostinvisible rom the ‘sueet isthe Largest immigration-process ing facility in America, and holds children taken from their parents under a policy thatPresident Donald Trump'sadministra tion initiated in April and then ordered stopped last week. Inside the facility, chil dren lie on mats beneath bright lights that never go out, wrapped in Mylar Blankets, caged behind chain-link fences. ‘Nine miles north, clad in amodeststuc £0, is the second building-the Catholic Chatities Humanitarian Respite Cente, ‘where migrants who have been released from detention can rest, shower, change clothes and have a hot meal before their onward joumey further into the United States. Mosthave travelled for weeks from Cental America, though some journeys are more arduous than ates. Brenda Rio" jas. acheery and tieless spokeswoman for ‘the Diocese of Brownsville, which runs the cente, says thata woman artived recently with a teneday-old baby: she had given birhinthe Mexican mountains during het northward ek On one recent Wednesday afternoon, young men huddled around a television watching the World Cup, while pparents tended to their children and filled Dut forms. A smattering of Texans arrived with boxes of dlothesto donate. If you are a liberal. you probably view what is happening inthe frst building as unbearably crue! and what is happening inthe second asdecentandjust Ifyou sup port the president, you probably view ‘what is happening in the frst building as regrettable butnecessary and whatis hap: »