safehold

Safehold is a term used to describe a secure location or facility intended to protect people, assets, or information from harm. In safety engineering and disaster planning, a safehold can be a shelter, a fortified room, or a secured storage area designed to remain functional during emergencies. The concept emphasizes reliability, controlled access, and resilience to disturbances that could compromise safety.

In buildings and critical infrastructure, safeholds are incorporated into design and security codes. Examples include storm shelters or safe rooms in residential construction, secure data centers with reinforced racks and access controls, and protected enclosures for sensitive equipment or hazardous materials. The choice of safehold depends on the risk profile, required occupancy, and integration with other protective measures such as redundancies and emergency power.

In operational contexts, the term may be used to describe a designated refuge during incidents, evacuation plans, or continuity strategies that require personnel or assets to be moved to a safehold for protection or preservation.

In fiction, Safehold is the title and setting of a science fiction series by Orson Scott Card. In that work, Safehold is the name of a distant planet used as the basis for a long-running narrative about preserving human civilization and knowledge. The term thus appears both as a general concept in safety discourse and as a proper noun in popular culture.