ABSTRACT: The modern trend in design of the public buildings is to create multifunctional environments in one building, hosting a variety of functions. Multifunctional buildings entertain large number of visitors. The complexity and vulnerability of this type of public space are the main reasons to use within their design process the performance based approach including the recognition of hazards. Safety and reliability approach is now used in structural design and assessment. The paper presents safety-based approach used in the architectural design on the example of multifunctional building. The holistic method of design proposed in the paper considering hazards scenarios and management is presented and compared with the traditional design process based on the civil engineering codes.