// DESIGN · HANS STUDY · ONTARIO, CANADA
Security system design
Design work for the systems an operation depends on: CCTV, access control, the high security facilities that need more than both, and the networks, wireless, and cabling that carry them. Every design leaves as a specification an integrator can price and build to, held to named standards, from someone who sells no equipment and takes no margin on what gets specified.
Design is where a security system's cost and its failure modes get decided, and it is the phase that gets the least independent attention. The integrator designs to what they sell. The consultant designs to what they know. The owner ends up with drawings nobody outside those two rooms has read. This practice exists to be the third reader, and often the first designer, with no stake in which platform wins.
Nine engagements below. Most projects need one or two of them. If you are not sure which, the pre-purchase design review is the short engagement that usually tells you.
Design engagements
Physical Security Design Assessment →
Gap assessment of an existing design or a design going out to tender. Threat model to specification, with findings an integrator can price and build to.
High Security Design →
Facilities where the consequence of a bypass is not measured in inconvenience. Layered protection, controlled areas, and the standards that govern them.
Access Control System Design →
Door hardware, controllers, readers, credentials, and the network and power underneath them, designed as one system rather than four trades.
Video Surveillance Design →
Camera placement, coverage, storage, and the VMS architecture sized for year three, not the day of the tender.
Security Network Design →
The segmented, hardened network that cameras, doors, and servers actually run on. Most platform failures start here.
Wireless Design and Validation →
Predictive design, survey, and post-install validation for wireless that carries security traffic and cannot be allowed to drop it.
Data Centre and Structured Cabling →
Physical-layer decisions that are cheap at design and expensive after construction. Reviewed before the walls close.
ICAT Design and Project Advisory →
Integrated facility systems advisory and commissioning oversight where physical security and building technology converge on one project.
Security Design Standards →
The standards, codes, and references the designs above are held to, and how to write them into a specification so they are enforceable.
How design work is scoped
Each engagement is fixed-scope and priced from the service catalogue. Remote review covers most design work; site time is quoted separately where the building has to be walked. Deliverables are drawings, schedules, and a written specification, not a slide deck. Where a design is going to tender, the RFP development and bid evaluation engagement carries it through award.
Start with the drawings you have
Send the current design, or the brief if there is not one yet, and you will get a straight read on which of these fits and what it will cost.