Prison Architecture

199 Pages·2000·4.48 MB·English

by  Leslie Fairweather, Sean McConville

Prison Architecture
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Prison Architecture
Policy, Design and Experience
Edited by
Leslie Fairweather and Seán McConville
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First published 2000
Copyright © 2000, Leslie Fairweather and Seán McConville. All rights reserved.
The right of Leslie Fairweather and Seán McConville to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Fairweather, Leslie
Prisons - Design and construction 2. Prisons - Design and construction - History 3. Prisons - Design and
construction - Psychological aspects 4. Prisons - Design and construction - Social aspects
I. Title II. McConville, Seán
725.6
ISBN 0 7506 4212 2
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Prison architecture: policy, design, and experience/edited by Leslie Fairweather and Seán McConville.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 7506 4212 2
I. Prisons - Design and construction - Great Britain. I. Fairweather, Leslie. II. McConville, Seán
HV8829.GB P75
725'.6'0941-dc21 00-038090
For information on all Architectural Press publications visit our webside at
www.routledge.com
Composition by Scribe Design, Gillingham, Kent, UK
Transferred to digital printing 2005
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Contents
List of plates
List of illustrations and acknowledgements
List of contributors
Foreword by Lord Hurd of Westwell CH CBE, chair of the Prison Reform Trust
Preface
1 The architectural realization of penal ideas
Sean McConville
2 English prison design
Ian Dunbar and Leslie Fairweather
3 Psychological effects of the prison environment
Leslie Fairweather
4 Design and the likelihood of prison assaults
Richard Wener
5 Architects and the prison experience
Sir Andrew Derbyshire
6 Does design matter?
Leslie Fairweather
7 Prison policy, construction and design
Sir Richard Tilt
8 Building for growth
Elaine Bailey
9 Responding to a fourfold increase in population: the experience of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons
Scott Higgins
10 Prisons in the USA: cost, quality and community in correctional design
James Kessler
11 Prisons in the USA: supermax - the bad and the mad
Norval Morris
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12 Prisons in Europe: France
Jean François Jodry and Michel Zulberty
13 Prisons in Europe: The Netherlands
Peter van Hulten
14 Public/private partnerships
Leslie Fairweather
15 Providing the complete prison package
Michael Gander
16 What needs to be done?
Sir David Ramsbotham
17 Prison architecture and the politics of reform
Stephen Shaw
Index
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Plates
Plate 1 Interior of cell unit at Woodhill prison, Milton Keynes. This is one of only three triangular cell
block prisons in England. (see Chapters 2 and 3. RMJM, photo Peter Cook.)
Plate 2 Exterior of another UK triangular prison, Lancaster Farms. Large windows to the enclosed
association space are to the left and right, (see Chapter 2.)
Plate 3 More human scale and colourful visiting centre at Belmarsh prison, Thamesmead, London, (see
Chapter 3. © Crown Copyright. NMR photograph by James O. Davies.)
Plate 4 Imposing entrance front to Wake County Public Safety Center, Raleigh, North Carolina. The jail
tower is to the rear of the site, (see Chapter 10. HOK, photo MacKenzie.)
Plate 5 Calm interior of Mecklenburg Work Release Center, for those who can accept more responsibility
while awaiting a return to the outside community, (see Chapter 10. Little/HOK, photo Rick
Alexander.)
Plate 6 Slab blocks of Mecklenburg County Jail designed to respond to its urban context, (see Chapter 10.
HOK, photo Rick Alexander.)
Plate 7 Interior of prison at Epinal, France, showing softening effect of indoor landscaping, (see Chapter
12.)
Plate 8 The Street' at Epinal prison, which links all the prison cell units and facilities. This is a new concept
in French prisons. (see Chapter 12.)
Plate 9 A break with tradition at Epinal, with an exterior facade quite unlike other prison buildings, (see
Chapter 12.)
Plate 10 Interior junction of cell wings at Zutphen prison in The Netherlands, forming an airy and well-lit
hub. (see Chapter 13.)
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Illustrations and acknowledgements
2.1 The development of prison plans from nineteenth-century radial prisons to twentieth-century new
generation designs.
a. Typical radial prison (Pentonville, 1842)
b. Self-contained house blocks (Blundeston, 1963)
c. Telephone-pole layout (Featherstone, 1977)
d. Courtyard plan (Low Newton, 1978)
e. Galleried prison (Bullingdon, 1991)
f. New generation prison (Doncaster, 1993)
g. New generation prison (Woodhill, Milton Keynes, 1992)
h. Woodhill site layout (1992)
i. Prison Design Briefing System (PDBS) prison, suggested plan and section (1992)
j. PDBS prison, suggested site layout (1992)
k. New generation prison (Lancaster Farms, 1993).
2.2 Blundeston prison design model, 1963. The first real departure from radial principles, with separate
housing units sited around a central facilities block.
2.3 PDBS suggested design.
a. Axonometric
b. Elevation
c. Section.
2.4 Typical corridor-type cell block, Bristol. The original prison opened in 1882; this block was added
1967. (© Crown Copyright. NMR photograph by James O. Davies.)
2.5 Interior of Woodhill prison, 1992, showing open association area with two tiers of gallery access cells
and glazed wall (left).
3.1 New design of single and double cells 'moulded' from one material. These examples are from a
rehabilitated wing at Belmarsh prison, completed in 1997. Single cell (above), double cell (below).
3.2 Standard single cell.
3.3 Single cell redesigned as 'safe' cell.
3.4 Standard double cell.
3.5 Double cell redesigned as 'safe' cell.
3.6 New cell design for disabled inmate with wheelchair.
3.7 Original imposing and forbidding Pentonville gatehouse designed by Sir Charles Barry (1842): classical
order and symmetry inspiring respect for the law. (© Crown Copyright. NMR photograph by Derek
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Kendall.)
3.8 The more modest entrance at Durham prison (1987). This building could almost be a community
centre, law court or college.
3.9 Four-storey houseblocks at Coldingly prison (1971) based on the Blundeston design. A very
institutional, austere, and overpowering presence, with minimal landscaping.
3.10 A more complex but smaller-scale facade at Woodhill prison (1992), which does not express the cellular
nature of the building. The rear elevation, however, very much expresses its purpose with a saw-tooth
arrangement of cells. (RMJM, photo Peter Cook.)
4.1 Violence model.
4.2 Relationship of context to perceived safety and violence.
8.1 Houseblock cell unit built as part of the Emergency Accommodation programme.
8.2 The Weare, moored at Weymouth, Dorset, formerly used as a floating barracks. This provided an
imaginative solution to an acute accommodation problem, and it is now popular both as a prison and as
a tourist attraction.
10.1 Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Facility - a very urban solution, reflecting the architecture of the
neighbourhood. (HOK, photo Lee Ewing.)
10.2 Typical housing unit at Baltimore, with cells enclosing a central association area. Compare with the
triangular plan shown in Figure 10.6.
10.3 Precast concrete units being lowered into position during construction of Fairfax Adult prison. (HOK)
10.4 Site layout of Virginia's Women's prison. It is smaller in some ways than the PDBS layout shown in
Figure 2.1j, with small-scale cell blocks arranged around a central courtyard. (MHM/HOK)
10.5 A much tougher solution is chosen for the Youth Institution at Butner. Very little communication is
allowed between inmates; cells are arranged more traditionally off a fairly narrow corridor.
(HOK/Little)
10.6 A series of triangular house units is arranged off a central corridor at Mecklenburg County Jail.
Triangular plans of this sort were popular when new generation first took hold, but now many different
geometrical shapes are used, (see also plate 6.)
12.1 North zone: cruciform solution in various configurations for use as a remand prison.
12.2 South zone: star-shaped remand prison.
12.3 East zone: cell units linked by semicircular 'street', (see also plates 7, 8, 9.)
12.4 Competition design concept. L-shaped cell blocks are located diagonally within a square enclosing wall.
12.5 A further variation, with an undulating 'street' connecting the cell blocks.
13.1 Brick exterior of prison at Zutphen.
13.2 Interior of cell wing at Zutphen. Central access is widened slightly to provide association space, (see
also plate 10.)
13.3 Courtyard layout at Sittard.
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15.1 Site layout for HM Prison at Moreton Lane, Marchington, Staffordshire, which is being built by
Premier Prison Services. Small-scale radial prisons are becoming popular again.
15.2 Entrance to HM Prison at Kilmarnock, Scotland.
15.3 Cell hall at Kilmarnock. This is a standard design for almost all prisons built by Premier Prison
Services.
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