Boundary Possibility: A Vertical Prison for Cybercriminals in The Hague

What does a prison look like when the crime has no physical scene? When the offense is a stolen dataset, a phishing operation, or a piece of malware manufactured and deployed entirely through screens? Boundary Possibility starts from the premise that cybercrime demands a fundamentally different carceral architecture: one that sorts inmates not by the severity of violence, but by behavioral and psychological typology. The result is an hourglass-shaped civic tower in The Hague that stacks cultural programming above correctional space, deliberately collapsing the boundary between confinement and public life.

Designed by Chengpeng Li, the project was shortlisted in the Switching Prisons competition. It responds to a provocation about the future of incarceration by focusing on the specific characteristics of digital offenders: scam operators, data thieves, software manipulators, and privacy violators. Rather than a fortress of isolation, Li proposes a hybrid structure where rehabilitation, surveillance, education, and civic engagement coexist within a single vertical infrastructure.

Corridors and Cell Blocks as Behavioral Landscapes

The interior views reveal multi-level cell blocks and corridors populated with figures moving through spaces that feel more institutional than punitive. There are no bars visible in the traditional sense. Instead, the architecture relies on spatial layering and visual transparency to maintain oversight. Li's approach draws from a diagrammatic analysis of global cybercrime patterns, mapping categories like malware manufacturing and digital goods trafficking onto distinct spatial zones. Inmates driven by ideological motivations occupy different areas than those driven by economic disparity, turning behavioral diagnosis into a zoning tool.

An Hourglass Section: Culture Above, Correction Below

The section drawing makes the building's logic explicit. Wide upper levels house cultural functions: theaters, restaurants, exhibition spaces, and balconies that enable indirect interaction between inmates and the public. The structure narrows at its midsection before expanding again into lower tiers dedicated to storage and core correctional programs. This inversion of the typical prison model, which buries public functions at the perimeter and puts cells at the center, is deliberate. Li positions the prison as a civic monolith, dense and multifunctional, where society participates visibly in the process of reform rather than outsourcing it behind walls.

The axonometric drawing reinforces this reading, showing multiple platform levels connected by vertical towers with varied spatial programs. Each platform operates at a different scale and density, suggesting that movement through the building is itself a form of graduated reintegration. The contrast with historical fortress-like models of medieval and modern prisons is stark and intentional.

Cell Units Configured for Cognitive Rehabilitation

At the smallest scale, Li details nighttime sleeping configurations through isometric cell units accompanied by plan views. These are not simply dormitories. The diagrams suggest spatial strategies that distinguish between physical incarceration and cognitive rehabilitation, a distinction central to the project's thesis. For cybercriminals whose offenses are entirely non-material, the architecture of the cell itself becomes a question: what exactly are you containing, and what are you trying to restore?

Jury Responses: Abstraction, Geography, and Green Space

The jury's response was mixed, revealing the tension between the project's conceptual ambition and its practical resolution. Adrian Iredale (Director, iredale pedersen hook architects) noted that the design "creates a highly abstract and competitive environment that encourages reward and punishment at the expense of rehabilitation." Misak Terzibasiyan (Founder and CEO, UArchitects) questioned the geographic specificity of the site analysis. Michael Spight (Director, TAG Architects) offered a more targeted critique, observing that "the integration of some green space would be an asset to this generally well-handled scheme. Light and contact with the environment is essential." These readings collectively highlight a gap between the project's sophisticated typological thinking and the experiential qualities of light, landscape, and warmth that any correctional environment ultimately requires.

Why This Project Matters

Boundary Possibility is most compelling as a provocation. It asks whether the architecture of justice can be reorganized around the nature of the offense rather than the body of the offender. In a world where cybercrime is growing faster than any other category of criminal activity, that question is not abstract; it is urgent. Li's proposal to zone a prison by behavioral diagnosis rather than security level represents a genuinely novel contribution to the discourse on carceral architecture.

Where the project strains is in the distance between its diagrammatic clarity and the lived experience of inhabiting such a building. The jury's call for green space and environmental contact points to a deeper issue: that even the most intellectually rigorous prison design must ultimately reckon with the sensory and emotional needs of human beings. Still, as a speculative framework for rethinking what prisons could become when crime migrates entirely into digital space, Boundary Possibility opens territory worth exploring further.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Chengpeng Li

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Project credits: Boundary Possibility, by Chengpeng Li Switching Prisons (uni.xyz).