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Open Juvenile Detention Center
In an open prison environment, characterized by the absence of physical boundaries or barriers that prevent potential escapes, a penal system elaticity is not enough. Spatial configurations far from the ones accepted or identified by the general public as prisons are crucial, along with a sensitive design that pushes the envelope and encourages group activities, work and educational environments, as well as a substantial relationship with the landscape.
by Veatriki Gavrielatou, Eleni Gklinou, Afroditi Manakou;
Design Diploma Thesis, October 2014, A.U.Th.
WHAT? The goal is the development of a live-learn-work-‘play’ model, that imagines the prison as an village; a new concept modeled after typologies of closed prisons structured spatially as campuses. In this model the detainees are accommodated and educated on the prison-village premises, and depending on the level of gained trust they either work in agriculture related positions nearby, or occupy regular job positions, in the local communities.
WHERE? The open prison paradigms occur within a fourty-five minute drive radius from an urban center but maintain an agricultural character, in tandem with the various programmatic requirements.
WHO? The new detention center ideally hosts a population of up to one hundred young offenders, up to 25 years old that have committed minor crimes.
WHY? The spatial adjacency to a community, along with the addition of a substanial educational and professional component contribute to enhance the prisoner’s social identity and prepare him for his (re)integration to society.
The new open detention center is proposed in close proximity to the urban center of Tripoli Arcadia (population: 47,000), in the central Peloponnese peninsula, a two-hour drive from the Greek capital of Athens. Due to the spatial requirements of a village and the programmatic principles of open prisons that offer job opportunities related to the local developing agricultural sector, the field of study is located adjacent to the village Silimna (population: 200). The main access to Silimna is realized through the main ring-road that connects the capital of the prefecture Tripoli, with traditional and neotraditional villages located among the scenic beauties of Mount Mainalon.
A key point in the management of the proposal is the particularity of the site’s geomorphology. The succession and analogy of “armfuls” and “passages”presented, contribute to the emergence of characteristics that result in an intuitive and smooth transition-tour in the site. We proceed to the identification of four different qualities: the plateau, the cliff, the terraces, and the armful.
Attempting to translate these qualities spatially, the open prison is programmatically developed in four centers: the administrative and visitors’ center, the services’ center, the residential center, and the employment center.
The administrative center, situated on the northern plateau, includes various uses that are related to the supervision of the detainees, as well
as their interaction with visitors. The services’ center, central in the composition and the ‘armful’, includes programs related to the everyday life and education of the young offenders: the prison’s educational facility with 3 classrooms and a library, the dining hall and the cafeteria adjacent to the recreation hall, are articulated and designed to offer an experience of free movement from private to collective, semi-public, and public spaces.
The residential center is situated on the southern ‘armful’ and houses 100 prisoners, in housing modules. These are surrounded by the employment center and sub-centers that range in size and scale, where prisoners work on the cultivation and production of aromatic plants. These are processed off-site, in an existing herb processing facility in the city of Tripoli and sold in the growing local market, either as fresh or dried plants, or added value products. In that context, the detainees are not only provided with an option to use their incarceration time productively while developing an active relationship with nature, but also gain related skills. The prison’s educational facilities work in collaboration with the Forestry Department of the University of Tripoli, to test out new cultivation techniques in the prison fields that function as living laboratories, and offer essential knowledge to youth that could be interested to pursue a future in that field after their release.
One of the particularities of the open prison system lies in the organization module of each cell block. The general population is divided in housing teams of 11-12 people and given a housing module. This module contains 11-12 cells [2.50m x 3.00m], as well as a common space with a living room, small kitchen, dining area and a laundry/ storage room. Instead of following the principles of row housing, the modules disperse in the given space, with a result highly characterized by a manufactured complexity and density inherent in Greek traditional villages.
The modules have combined entrances, in groups of 2 or 3, while each of them has access to a semi-private garden that can provide for part of the fruit and vegetable needs of each.
This prison model also encourages the provision of housing for “free” prisoners as well, who have gained the trust of the authorities and are allowed to occupy 2 people houses, live independently, even with their own keys.The general population modules [approximately 80% of the prisoners live here] is situated on the east side of the main access. At the same time, the “free” prisoners’ modules are situated along the west side of the main access.The two categories of housing enclose and define a collective public space. This area is mainly open air, due to the favorable weather conditions in Greece, but also includes a common room available for group activities during wintertime.
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