A modern, humane, high-security prison that uses architecture to promote prisoners’ social rehabilitation
The aim of the closed Storstrøm Prison is to create the world’s most humane high-security prison, which contributes to the inmates’ social rehabilitation through architecture that supports the inmates’ mental and physical well-being and also ensures a secure and pleasant workplace for the prison staff.
The overall architectural intent is to create a facility that echoes the structure and scale of a small provincial community. The result is architecture which stimulates the urge and ability to rejoin society after serving a prison sentence. The architecture also creates a pleasant and secure environment for the prison staff, and is a natural element of the surrounding built-up area on Lolland Falster.
The new Palace of Justice in Córdoba is located in Arroyo del Moro which is characteristically dominated by anonymous housing blocks, products of the rapid urban development of 21st century Spanish cities. The blocks that characterize the urban fabric of the zone were not capable of generating public space or offering something new to the city, but collectively they form a compact and coherent urban identity. The addition of a public institution to the area creates the opportunity to upgrade the public realm and add a civic quality to this relatively new neighborhood.
Article source: A i B arquitectes + Estudi PSP Arquitectura
The prison is an uncomfortable institution and its architecture is often subjugated to technocratic criteria. This servility forces the prison out of the sociocultural realm where it belongs, thus erasing it from public discourse. The invisibility of the penitentiary as an institution demonstrates an unresolved contradiction underlying contemporary society. We intend to explore this contradiction through architecture.
Aerial view : Image courtesy A i B arquitectes + Estudi PSP Arquitectura
The design of the prison is based on three key elements. First, is a main guard station as a central cylindrical form washed by daylight from a surrounding skylight. The skylight and guard station rise up from the building as a smooth cone, contrasting the buildings sharp edges. The second set of elements is internal courtyards forming the heart of each cell block. The courtyards let daylight into the cell blocks, allowing the possibility to spend time outdoors and in some cases; prisoners enjoy views into the courtyards.
The prison is located in the Pacific Ocean close to the Canadian coastline. The main program is a sustainable prison which acts as a hydroelectric power station. Constructed of steel reinforced concrete, it’s vertical structure consists of a floating tension-leg platform tethered to the seabed eliminating most vertical movement, with depths up to 2,000m.
The prison is uniquely designed as a small village and integrates several landscape features, among other things animal husbandry, within the perimeter wall.
C. F. Møller Architects has won the competition to build a new, closed state prison on the island of Falster. The new state prison for approximately 250 inmates is designed as a low, urban structure, centred round the various leisure and working facilities, which are connected via several streets and a central square.
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