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C21st Century Prison
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C21st Century Prison
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Developed with the Do Tank for the Home Office the model prison, launched in July 2002, focuses on learning for reform. Since the launch our proposals have been the subject of numerous press articles. The design is a blueprint for both palpable quality and managerial efficiency. The architecture helps in the management of the prisoner. The building mitigates the intense and wasteful aspects of managed movement and security through the organisation of prisoners into viable groups, housed in simple spaces, ostensibly learning environments adjacent to freely accessible discrete external space. The architecture fulfils both a social and psychological role, through the creation of humane, secure but not repressive environments, and an economic role, crucially by releasing staff time to conduct the new regime of learning initiatives. This economic role may extend to the financing of these new prisons. Our model occupies about 2/3 a typical Victorian prison site thus freeing up capital assets within the prison service to reinvest in the new model. In our model the building is not just a container, but also an active variable in the Prison Service programme and outcomes. |
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The House is the foundation of the model prison. This is an 'autonomous live-learn unit' into which communal activities are decentralised. Prisoners live in groups of 36, balancing anthropological and economic benefit. The prisoners becomes personally accountable to their community. The houses sit above a table of communal facilities arranged in a chequerboard pattern. Circulation, linking houses and communal facilities, is secure, efficient and intelligible. Houses and communal facilities are provided with courtyard gardens - easy to manage, secure environments linked with activity, not confused with movement. Issues in cell design include connotation, proportion, flexibility, choice ('structured dependency') and risk of self-harm. In the one-hectare prison an invisible pedagogy is at work. |
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