Rethinking correctional facilities
Time for Switching Prisons
Background
The definition of crime is culturally subjective. This subjectivity used to help us define law and punishment in a more rational manner in the past. Today, this subjectivity placed against pacing time and increasing globalization is not easy to rationalize anymore. In today’s context, trade depends on technology and the currency here is information. The millions of gigabytes of data that flow over the internet fuel the economy today. Where stealing gold is deemed a crime and is identified by everyone as a crime. But when it comes to information, all the applications, internet service providers, devices like Alexa and corporations are running on this data. Many of these crimes go unreported or even do not pass the qualification of being a crime. In fact, their evasion from these crimes in the form of bail is cheaper than the prior forms of crime.
Issue
In a world of ever-growing dimensions of crime, the law is pushing back in finding patterns and new ways to track/identify/persuade/reduce crime. However, what is not keeping up is the infrastructure to punish/rehabilitate/imprison such criminals.
The prison which exists today is designed for containing criminals who are disrupting society in the physical realm. These involve identifiable offences that happen like murder, theft, robbery, vandalism, etc. that involve a perpetrator to use bare hands and can be seen. But what about criminals who are disrupting our societies of tomorrow which are based on the web? Are the prison of today cannot be used for them?
The prison which actually exists today is built on various factors like cost, operational efficiency, staff, antiquated surveillance systems, crime rate and mostly by the kind of punitive thought they are based on.
Brief
Crime in the growing world of the web today is committed by conscious adults as well as kids who just learned some tech and are lured by making some easy money or just for the thrill. Are these prisons are ready for people like us who are not in here because of violent crimes?
Do prison designs really deserve good planning?
or Alternatively, do prisoners deserve the dignity of good design?
Uni launched a competition of designing a model prison building for 500 perpetrators, who are sentenced for serving crimes that are non-physical/cyber/online in nature in the context of the present and coming future.
Like the previous models of the prison discussed earlier, the answer replicated considering the vast amount of population moving into cities and the increasing crimes relating to the internet. The prison designed by the participants justified the kind of architectural decisions they took to foster a better prison design. Participants used technology-oriented surveillance solutions being aware of exploiting its vulnerabilities can be complemented with analogue security features as well.
The jury for the competition consisted of esteemed designers, professionals and academicians from around the world. The Lead Jurors for the competitions were as follows:
Matt Cartwright, Founding Director, Twelve Architects Ltd, UK
Michael Spight, Director, TAG Architects, Australia
Misak Terzibasiyan, Founder and CEO, UArchitects, Netherlands
Adrian Iredale, Director, iredale pedersen hook architects, Australia
"Some of the Best of competition projects are:"
Winning Project: A Botanical Exchange
By: Cian Hrabi, Ardy Chang & Madeline Kim
Description: Cyber Crime is without a place and criminals without an identity. This rehabilitative prison seeks to reconnect criminals with a sense of physical space, self, and community through a focus on tangible work like farming, gardening, and craftsmanship. Our design builds off current rehabilitative prison strategies, such as a campus-like layout and light, rich material choices. We researched the fundamental problems that would sway someone to commit cybercrimes.
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Runner - Up: COMMUNIVERSITY
By: Rus Harding, Adrew Duffin, Anthea Doyle, Ewan Saunders, Mario Notaro & Kolo Chen
Description: NBRS Architecture submits an evolution to how prisons and incarceration are traditionally thought of. Our concept is called: COMMUNIVERSITY A reformative facility that uses educational principals to advance participants as well as providing social education by maintaining a heavy focus on community and interpersonal engagement. The terms we are traditionally familiar within this field are ‘corrections’, ‘prisons’, and ‘incarceration’. Our concept seeks to guide these traditional earmarks into an evolutionary phase emerging from a more educational based guidance program. A place to/learn and give to the common good through a woven interdependency leading to adjusted individual well-being. The campus will reflect a structured woven inter-dependency with a controlled permeable soft edge.
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Runner - Up: BEHIND THE WALLS: A canopy for repentance
By: Sophie Renard & Benoit Idiart
Description: The project rethinks the actual model of prison and offers an alternative to the punitive aspect. The mass plan is organized like a campus, with different polarities. The main idea on which the project is based is that by creating a link between nature and the prisoner, the living environment of the prisoner improves and allows him to reintroduce himself gradually into society. So we designed buildings that play with the vegetation, through bridges that flourish through the trees. Vegetation gives privacy to the prisoners and offers them beautiful views, allowing them to perceive the passage of time differently. In addition, the vegetation allows us to hide the wall of the prison. Indeed, we have also sought to mask any mark of authority in this place so as to create a benevolent environment for the prisoner. One of the fundamental principles of our project is also to create small communities of prisoners so that a social bond is established between them.
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People’s Choice: AI.Prison
By: Reechal Mevada
Description: Although isolating prisoners from any form of computers wouldn't make them unlearn the methods of hacking, cybercriminals should be obligated to enter a zero-sunlight prison to be certified for future interactions. The underground cells create a garage-like atmosphere where hackers typically operate from and transform their idea of a workspace. Designing a zero-sunlight prison with freezing temperatures underground creates an urge for the prisoner to complete the code/ task for the day efficiently in order to travel to the ground level for even just a few minutes of sunlight. The prisoner is initially assigned to a cell in one of the lower levels of the underground structure depending on the intensity of the crime committed and gradually finds the opportunity to move upwards as he or she develops solutions to make the world a better place.
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People’s Choice: 01 | Prison
By: Fabian Gay & Thibaut Servier
Description: Cybercrime is allowed thanks to the loss of identity that the virtual allows. Incarceration often rhymes with loss of identity. The prisoner becomes a number lost in the mass.
How to re-invent incarceration to see it adapt to new crimes and society in change?
Rather than seeing a large building full of small cells, this prison is a large cell full of small buildings. A large cell, which allows more freedom and autonomy. The prison is thought of as a city, and not just a building. Identity search must be done in diversity, autonomy, accountability, and exchange. The effervescence of the city allows this, it creates daily a multitude of scenarios in the lives of prisoners, which will stimulate them.
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Special Mention: The Funnel
By: Christie Chin
Description: A new approach to challenge the hermetic and isolated penitentiary institution, catered to both users, the offenders, and the general public. Its physical layout is designed to gather said groups together and give each other the chance to undergo transition via functional programs namely reflect, reform, reform, reintegrate and reborn.
Discover the full results here: https://uni.xyz/competitions/switching-prisons/entries
Discover the design brief here: https://uni.xyz/competitions/switching-prisons/info/about
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