The patterns of our town and city centres will continue to change as the needs and
orientations of our society change. Today the city centres face real challenges. They must
respond to the changing needs and demands of modern-day living if they are to survive.
They must provide places, which are attractive, welcoming and safe. City centres come to
terms with changing circumstances at the end of the twentieth century. One of these
circumstances is terrorism.
Terrorism has been increasing in scale in recent years, and its style has widened. Since the
success of the terrorist attack depends on his propaganda, the terrorists strategy has turned to
use the city centre facilities as a target for terrorist attacks.
Although, the risk to any individual structure of becoming the object of a terrorist attack is
very small, analysis of terrorist attacks in the last decade indicates that this risk is greatest for
facilities in city centres and public spaces. In this case the entire urban environment
experiences the effects of the blast wave, which can cover miles of the surrounding areas.
This paper presents the findings from the phase of a programme of research which explores
the protection offered the influence of spatial organizations in urban environments, as
assessed using the AUTODYN simulation package 3D V3.1.17