I mention briefly below a few guidelines, though I am sure that other officers with experience in high-threat areas could add their own. First, treat the embassy environment as a place to perform office tasks. It is not where the Foreign Service officer conducts diplomacy. It's nice to take the occasional visitor past the flag and the Marine and to call on the ambassador or consul general in the spacious office. But tight access controls mean that that visitor will have his or her car searched, will pass through metal detectors, and will be subject to personal search.
Aesthetic considerations are nice, but are 'way down the list of priorities.
Those who want a tradeoff in favor of appearances over security should count the lives they are willing to spend. Having an office in a secure embassy is no good reason for a diplomat to spend all his or her time there. In Kuwait, for example, much of the emirate's political, business, and social life takes place in the diwanniyas of the leading families, the extended family gatherings held weekly at the homes of local patriarchs. In the late 1980s, the four senior officers of the embassy, Ambassador Howell, the DCM, and economic and political officers, were regular visitors at those gatherings. Second, the diplomat must know the local culture to appreciate the security situation.