ForAccess control severalTerritorial reinforcement decades, the potential to reduce crime through modifications to the built environmentBuilt environment has been widely debated and implemented within the field of Environmental Crime PreventionEnvironmental crime prevention. Universal designUniversal design principles such as Natural SurveillanceNatural surveillance, Target Hardening or Access ControlAccess control have all been found to lead to important drops in criminal activity rates; though, the efficacy of these principles is still the subject of continued research. Safety is one of those human dimensions the remains within the thresholds of form and function. Functional places are not always safe, and the same is valid for aesthetically pleasing ones. One of the most notorious changes to the built environment is gained through the implementation of vertical barriers under the umbrella of Access Control. These measures are widely recognized as an effective means to regulate people’s access, egress, and movement. Vertical barriers may be also implemented via exaptationExaptation, by existing built environment features originally created for a different purpose. Nonetheless, implementing Access Control measures for safety is useless without understanding its influence on Territorial behaviours. Territoriality recurrently highlights the patterns of behaviour associated with the defence or protection of a defined place. A better understanding of Access Control thresholds was gained thanks to using a Graphic Mapping Overlay methodology. To understand vertical barriers in a public spacePublic space, it is important to quantify them in terms of their impact on human scale. How Access Control gets implemented must pay close attention - such controls must be wary to avoid creating unwelcoming, undersurveilled spaces. Safer and liveable urban placesUrbanplaces need a multidisciplinary approach from urban planningUrbanplanning, environmental studies, and architecture under design-crime prevention frameworks.