Philip JUNE

re:FORM Philip June Architectural Thesis Drexel University, 2016 Adviser: John DeFazio

“ Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work .� it does on itself and on its institutions.

-Michel Foucault

A prison planned for pervasive interface between inmates, the natural environment, and the wider community will engage offenders in their rehabilitation and encourage pro-social behavior, thereby reducing recidivism.

This thesis project seeks to orient priorities in prison design within the United States toward actual prevention of crime by imagining a new typology for incarceration supported by education in sustainability.

Architects can be agents of social change, and as such many abstain from designing buildings that house functions to which they are ethically opposed. The presence of solitary confinement and execution chambers in the American prison system leads many in the profession to pull away from working on prisons, generating a vacuum of design that manifests as ill-informed and ineffectual buildings. The lack of thoughtful design in these facilities is a significant factor in the recidivism epidemic pervasive throughout the U.S. A symptom of this larger systemic issue is the overcrowding of state prisons; the prison population at the state level in 2013 was 2,012,400, which far surpasses the capacity of facilities in some regions of the country. In certain states, this lack of infrastructure leads to the contracting of local jails for long-term inmates - facilities neither equipped nor trained

for managing rehabilitation. The result is that many prisoners and prison staff are left with few resources for successful corrections and reintegration. In some cases, these contracted detention centers also serve as significant economic boons for their municipalities thanks to generous per capita stipends from state governments. The resulting profiteering can often be correlated to reduced rates of parole for the prisoners held in a particular jurisdiction.

Also of great concern is the disproportionate racial breakdown of the prison population in the US. While the latent racism in our nation’s legal system cannot be redressed directly by architecture, the current dogma of prison design that seeks to strip inmates of their identity can be altered to accommodate the individual and intersecting disadvantages that are a fact of life for over a third of the U.S. inmate population.

Thus, the intention of this project is as follows: A prison planned for pervasive interface between inmates, the natural environment, and the wider community will engage offenders in their rehabilitation and encourage pro-social behavior, thereby reducing recidivism. This goal must be supported by careful design of prison elements so as to reaffirm and make manifest prisoners’ humanity, which is the most essential piece to the puzzle of their rehabilitation. In the words of journalist Will Potter, “...we must bear witness to what is being done to these prisoners. Their treatment is a reflection of the values held beyond prison walls. This story is not just about prisoners. It is about us.”

751 455 290 109

Europe (average)

Iran

Russia

United States

Incarcerated Persons Per 100,00 Citizens

$30,620

$10,615

Average Taxpayer Cost

USA

4%

(310 million)

Overall

USA

22%

(2.2 million)

Incarcerated

World Population Percentage

2/3 Returned To Prison Within 3 Years

PROJECT SITE Minnesota <400/100,000

Louisiana >1400/100,000

US incarceration by state

state prisoners in local jails 0

25

50

publicly-owned brownfield CA

OU

NF

BO

In addition to a stricter habitual offender law than California’s notorious “three strikes” system, Louisiana is at the center of prison privatization; today, more Lousianian criminals reside in private or local institutions than in state-run facilities. Lousiana also maintains the country’s largest prison - the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Built on the site of a former plantation and named for the ethnicity of the farms historical slave population, Angola today is home to over 6,000 maximum-security prisoners and 1,800 staff.

Thus, Louisiana is a hotbed for the problems affecting our corrections system, and as such will form the crucible for a new typology to combat recidivism.

100 Miles

PROJECT SITE

U YO BA

When selecting a site for a project intended to address a particular problem, I felt it was important to find somewhere that epitomized the problem. As such, I sought the U.S. state with the highest incarceration rate in the country. This title belongs to Louisiana, whose rate of 1,400 incarcerated persons per 100,000 citizens is the highest in the world.

The City of Slidell is located 30 miles northeast of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain and the Davis Memorial Bridge. Much of the area to the south of the town is wetland along Lake Pontchartrain, with the town’s center being located much further inland at the intersection of commercial areas that extend outward.

The city was incorporated in 1888, being settled after the construction of a railroad through the area from New Orleans in 1882.

The city’s industry’s and shipyards on the

Lake made it indispensable to the war effort in Louisiana during both World Wars, but afterwards most industries other than fishing fell into decline. Currently, Slidell’s 30,000+ residents are mostly commuters, with certain commercial office and retail sectors scattered throughout the city. (“History of Slidell”) The coastal wetlands to the south of Slidell turn into bayous as they travel further inland, serving as drinking water for much of the town’s residential areas. The word bayou is a Louisiana French bastardization of the Choctaw word bayuk, meaning “small stream” (Harper) Bayous usually manifest as swampy creeks in parts of the country where the terrain is mainly flat, precluding faster moving waters.

Salt, fresh, and brackish water can be found in bayous depending on their location and terminus. While bayous are not typically tidal, they are prone to flooding from heavy rains and often have poorly defined banks. (Dunn) The specific site is a former cement manufacturing plant on the shores of Bayou Bonfouca in south-central Slidell. This bayou is the source of fresh water for the surrounding residential neighborhood.

For much of the 1900s, a creosote plant occupied the land just south of the project site, contaminating its surrounds for the next several decades. In the 1990s, the EPA designated the plant and the bayou a Superfund site, and used federal money to dredge the swamp bed and replace the soil at the former facility. The improvement was remarkable, and in place of the industrial site the city of Slidell constructed Heritage Park. Unfortunately, the remediation

efforts did not extend to neighboring cement plant, where lingering contamination in the ground became evident once the site was decommissioned in the mid 2000s. (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Return...â&#x20AC;?)

Today, Heritage Park stands as both a shining example of the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to repair natural infrastructure and a reminder of the work left to be done.

In terms of character, the site leaves little to behold. Clusters of municipal operations buildings and equipment hug the eastern edge of a large retention mound, upon which very little vegetation manages to grow. A forest glen at the western edge of the site shows signs of stunted outward growth, with invasive species ubiquitous to this region reveling in their inconspicuous location e.g.

Spanish moss. Much of the site is surrounded by a chain link fence, with entry gates along the northern side. Overall, the effect is dismal when compared to other bayou environs that can be found in Slidell.

fig. 1: base site

fig. 3: bike/pedestrian barriers

fig. 2: 100 yr flooding

fig. 4: contaminated soil

current roster St. Tammany Parish Jail

guards

1044 INMATES 8:1 8:1

staff

60

survey of Dutch prisons from the perspective of inmate-guard cooperation. Beijersbergen and her team several planning and stylistic environments that coincided with greater inmate cooperation, but invariably they noted two factors that contributed most to the breakdown of adversarial relationships.

45

inmate to guard inmate to guard

AT

ES

10:1 inmate to staff 10:1 inmate to staff

4 5 0 IN

M

4:1 inmate to non-inmate 4:1 inmate to non-inmate

planned roster new prison

450

inmates

PROGRAM Using the size of the site and assumptions about maximum community size for an effective population size, the breakdown of the new prison has been determined as demonstrated on the facing page.

intention is that the prison have an immersive feel that reduces barriers between staff, guards, and prisoners, thereby encouraging the development of community and creating an environment of dynamic security.

Firstly, given that men make up the overwhelming majority of incarcerated persons in the U.S., the 1/6 of the population of St. Tammany Parish Jail that is female can be removed from the pool. Based on the limitations of the site and the desired program functions, an estimated 450 inmates can be diverted to the new facility from the remaining 870 prisoners.

The resultant facility population numbers at 555, with the 450 inmates being accompanied by 105 â&#x20AC;&#x153;clocked-inâ&#x20AC;? personnel. The guard roster would be larger than the active allotment of 60, allowing for consistent vacation time as well as an alternating in-residence contingent.

The 60 staff would assist in the functioning of the prison and its rehabilitative programs,

Utilizing ratios intended for establishing optimal teacher-student populations, inmate-guard and inmate-staff comparisons are derived such that the overall population of inmates versus non-inmates is exceptional.

The

Establishing an inventory of design tools that are consistent with the community goals of this project is made difficult by their general absence from prison design. Some data exists thanks to architects like Karen Beijersbergen, who in 2014 completed a

The first was single bunking, which was noted by inmates as refreshing in terms of the level of personal privacy and general comfort with their surroundings. Single bunking is not to be confused with solitary confinement, which deprives inmates of all interpersonal contact.

The second factor was facility age - the survey team found that heedless of the level of maintenance, the age of facilities older than 75-100 years was a significant psychological factor for both inmates and guards. Newer facilities were felt to be less neglectful, either through more thoughtful design or more capable building technologies.

With the incorporation of sustainable practices into the design of facility, there is the potential make renewal the cornerstone of the entire process. In this particular instance, the goal is to locate the project in a brownfield site and use its rehabilitation as metaphor to teach inmates about their own prospects for recovery. The hope is that allowing inmates to take a larger role in the remediation processes being undertaken at the site will instill in them a sense of pride for their constructive abilities, spurring them to learn more and specialize in a modern field with real-world applications.av

ADMIN

48,530 SF (7%)

Once the inmate population was established, the primary design goals were used as multipliers to divine the types and quantities of spaces necessary for a facility such as this.

The Prison Component, represented in gray, is comprised of the living quarters for the facility’s 450 inmates. Each inmate is assigned a single-person cell that is clustered into units in multiples of 8. Each cluster has its own living, kitchen, and bathroom spaces.

Exercise and library spaces are shared between units, necessitating that clusters mix somewhat at random. The differently scaled interactions between these places create varying levels of community and trust, building support networks and forcing social groups to expand. Certain prisoner amenities, such as the library and the auditorium, call for centralized locations in which larger numbers of inmates can congregate.

The Reform Component, represented in green, accounts for all educational, laboratory, and training space. Included in the laboratory space is a provision for a “living machine”, which would be an integral part to the building’s research, mechanical systems, and rehabilitation of the site. Also under this umbrealla is a large visitation center.

Finally, the Administrative Component, represented in blue, forms the interface with the public. Located herein are the main entry and reception areas, as well as various administrative offices.

REFORM

48,530 SF (22%)

LIVING 156,280 SF (71%)

open facilities reintegration through participation

dynamic security interpersonal relationships and respect

+50 YEARS return

+15 YEARS re-establishment

+5 YEARS remediation

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE The central component of this thesis is the notion of renewal, which is imbued in every aspect of the rehabilitative program and effused in the architecture as well. As such, this project seeks to establish a framework where the correctional system and architectures have a prescribed life-cycle, at the end of which they become obsolete and are required to be re-established.

This form of sunsetting is not common in architecture; designers usually seek to maximize the longevity of their buildings, both from the standpoint of utility and that of sustainability. Society, however, inexorably changes, and a cornerstone institution like corrections must be made to keep pace in order to maintain its efficacy. The architecture of the facility is tied to the program, practices, and culture of a single point in time, and cannot hope to be both functional and relevant in perpetuity.

By prescribing a cycle of renewal for the building and site, the opportunity arises to tailor the correctional system and, by extension, correctional buildings, to the ever-changing landscape of American society. Thus, the traditional notion of sustainability in longevity is not valid in this particular instance.

Given the contaminated nature of the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soil, the timeline for this particular project is tied to the soil remediation and renaturalization of the scarred earth around the building - an estimated fifty-year process to be curated by the scientists and inmates working at the facility. Through this process, the site will be transformed into an endangered Louisianian

ecosystem - the pine savannah. In addition, a naturalized bayou shoreline will help mitigate the effects of flooding from future storms.

Prior to the construction of the facility, all contaminated soil will be removed and transported to an appropriate storage facility away from public drinking water supplies. Like following cancer surgery with chemotherapy, hyperaccumulator plant species would be used to absorb any lingering contamination.

After five years of continuous monitoring, the site will be ready for the introduction of keystone species - in this case, eastern longleaf pine.

As primary succession progresses, rare and endangered plants and animals will be reared in the prisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s laboratories; these organisms will be transplanted to the site and monitored regularly.

Once the ecosystem begins to take hold, it will require no small amount of maintenance from the inmates to ensure it thrives. Controlled brush fires and animal health monitoring will be part of the duties of the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s incarcerated human caretakers, who will serve as surrogates for the natural processes that will eventually maintain the landscape in their own right. Within fifty years, the pine savannah and alluvial shoreline of the bayou would be self-sufficient systems, as well as accessible public space. At this point in the life cycle of the facility, new prisoners would no longer continue to arrive; once empty, the buildings would be dismantled to allow the ecosystem to grow closer to the town. Concrete foundations and shear walls would remain, overtaken by nature, as a monument to the sites former use.

s,

d, ve c fa ont ci am li in ty at co ed ns so tr il uc r te em d o

+5

Ringed Map Turtle

Gulf Sturgeon

THREATENED

THREATENED

Louisiana Quillwort ENDANGERED

o si

i s ss s ce e c c e pl g su uc eci r n s y r p to ti ry l s da la lan a n u m p im ma co ce cu ne pr ani se nan c a o t nt f nt te r- yst e ec me n o me ain p e r u u c o c m hy c k di of do cti do rn f i f o eg o ion nd odu nd bu e t e a a t cl tra cl ruc r ntr r led y y o o c s c t t i t l d- in d- ons ni in ni tro n n o o e eg e ec m eg m on b d b c t an

+1

n,

, on

Hemlock Water Parsnip RARE

bayou shoreline

+10

Heelsplitter Mussel THREATENED

Corellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s False Dragonhead RARE

Manatee ENDANGERED

Saw Palmetto IMPERILED

+20

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker ENDANGERED

Eastern Longleaf Pine Savannah IMPERILED

Gopher Tortoise THREATENED

Night-Flowering Wild Petunia IMPERILED

pine savannah

n,

a rv y e s t ob ili c fa

+50

Eastern Tiger Salamander RARE

Golden Aster RARE

Bald Eagle ENDANGERED

Scaleleaf False Foxglove RARE

o ti

Winged Primrose Willow RARE

1

Halden Prison Halden, Norway Erik Møller Arkitekter + HLM arkitekter 2011

building use admin

2

Suomenlinna Prison Helsinki, Finland various designers 1973

building use admin

work/play

work/play

residential

residential

outdoor recreation

inmate range

pathway

inmate range

3

Justizzentrum Leoben Leoben, Austria Hohensinn Architecktur 2004

building use admin courthouse prison neighborhood

SELECTED CASE STUDIES

1 The design of Halden employs dynamic

security as its guiding principle, managing to generate spaces that allow for normal human contact among inmates and with guards. All are encouraged to make frequent use of the facilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public spaces, and the presence of art and nature is ubiquitous even within the prisons walls. All of these design elements work in concert to reduce the adversarial tendency of this type of environment, leaving prisoners with no enemy to confront but themselves.

2 Located on an island in the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s harbor,

inmate range

the facility is incorporated into a Russianbuilt fortress that today is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Inmates can take the ferry into town, or else be employed with the various maintenance duties required to maintain the historic site. Able to maintain jobs, study at university, and visit family, the prisoners are restricted only by GPS tracking anklets that ensure their return for curfew.

3 Proximity to family, friends, and legal counsel

public interface

is instrumental in the prisoners continued selfimprovement at the Justizzentrum Leoben in Austria. In contrast to the confinement and deprivation of a removed prison site, the presence of the court center directly links the judicial system with those they are sentencing, preventing court officers from distancing themselves from the correctional process.

INTERMEDIATE REVIEW At this stage, many of the core tenets that would stay with the project to the end were already present. The facility was sited out of the bayou’s immediate flood zone and closer to the town. The buildings were expressed in a unitized courtyard typology, together forming a perimeter that established the physical bounds of the prison and creating a secure interior zone within which the inmates could circulate freely.

The Reform and Administrative Components were scattered throughout the site, establishing nodes of interaction that simultaneouslt heralded entrances and exits from the interior prison “yard.”

The building forms were organized around an existing waterway on the site, providing visual access to water and a path for stormwater. The positions of the taller building forms were modulated in order to allow the prevailing winds to pass through the site. This increased air movement was utilized in conjunction with the courtyards in order to maximize natural ventilation, reducing the need for air conditioning.

At the perimeter of the site, the terrain was elevated to provide increased physical separation between in the inside yard and the rest of the site, as well as to reduce the scale of the three-story buildings to fit better into the surrounding context. In addition, the increased thermal mass at the ground floor further improved the building’s energy performance with respect to HVAC. SITE PLAN 0

60

120

240

EXTERIOR CONNECTIONS

INMATE RANGE

ACTIVITY NODES

WIND PATHS

INFIRMARY INMATE PROCESSING VISITATION COUNSELING CENTER

ADMINISTRATION PRIMARY EDUCATION

CENTRAL DINING

LIBRARY

RECYCLING CENTER

FITNESS CENTER COMPOSTING CENTER

CANINE TRAINING

LABORATORIES

BIKE SHOP

VISITATION

At this stage in the design, the entire ground floor of the facility consisted of public programs, ranging from therapy rooms to conservation laboratories. This allowed for greater openness at the first level, which was complemented with adjoining terraces and living spaces that could be opened to the outdoors. The administrative complex, counseling center, and primary education space were situated at the northern end of this plan, fronting a large gathering space from which the interior waterway sprung.

Other, more advanced programs were spread out further south, accompanying an intended gradient of inmate rehabilitation levels. In essence, as inmates progressed in their training and rehabilitation, so to would their living space process downstream, affording them greater freedom and privacy.

floors of residential for 24 inmates; each pair representing two units, for a total of 48 inmates.

This hierarchy of groupings was intended to provide an equivalent hierarchy of interaction, allowing offenders with antisocial tendencies to form a prosocial network from the ground up. This type of barrier-breaking networking would provide alternative paths to conflict resolution by building a community inmates that is invested in its own collective security.

Unitization is also beneficial to guards, simplifying the task of direct supervision and allowing them greater contact time with individual inmates.

These interpersonal relationships are essential to raising prisoner/ guard relationships above the status quo in American prisons, reducing the stress associated with that particular career.

The entrances to the site were minimalist pavilions, intended to be intensely transparent and, more importantly temporary. Ideally, within the fifty-year lifespan of the prison, the perception of prisons and prisoners could shift enought to accommodate an open prison.

The pavilions as expressed are capable of providing a passively secure border, but have the ability to be replaced with smaller fences and gates that would blur the line between prison and community, as with the open prison on Suomennlinna Island in Finland.

Each residential unit contained a living room on the ground floor where the inmates housed there could congregate. The walls of this living room could be opened when whether and timing permits, creating contiguous outdoor space from the unitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s courtyard to a terrace shared by each pair of units. In addition to providing a greater connection to the outdoors, this open space becomes an air path; air would be drawn through the building as wind passed over the courtyardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roof opening, creating a pleasant and healthy atmostphere for the upper residential floors.

The residential were typically expressed in two pairs of courtyard units, three stories in total with breezeway connectors. Each floor of the residential section contained 12 individual prison cells; each unit carried two

These indoor/outdoor spaces that would have the most activity all face the interior prison yard, helping to activate the space at all times while also providing for a favorite Lousianian pastime - relaxing on the front porch.

HOUSING TYPOLOGY PLAN - UPPER LEVELS 0

16

32

64

COMMUNAL VOLUMES

HOUSING UNIT TYPOLOGY axonometric

living machine wastewater treatement area

geoexchange borehole field

bayou shoreline

farmland

pine savannah

TECHNICAL REVIEW As time went on, the site intervention increased significantly. Whereas the scope of earthwork before encompassed only the removal of the contaminated soil, it expanded to include the reworking of the site into a naturalized levee to protect both the facility and the town from floods that continue to increase in frequency.

The new site plan created four main exterior zones - the alluvial bayou shoreline, where the terrain would step gradually to the mean flood elevation. The “side” of the levee would be planted and maintained as a flood zone, allowing for an ecosystem that naturally mitigates the effects of flooding to take root. The pine savannah would be establishd above the flood line, on a relatively flat site more conducive to its expression. To support a living machine that would treat the facility’s wastewater, a constructed wetland was positioned at the north end of the site.

This wetland would outflow into the newly naturalized stream, eventually rejoining the bayou. Finally, an area of farms would provide a buffer zone between the public and the facility.

The facility plan took on a more organic expression, using the newly established stram as a central ordering element. This less rigid plan allowed for the establishment of greater hierarchy among the public spaces, as well as the ability to concentrate certain porigrams in more central locations.

One of these central public areas was located toward the middled of the stram, fronted by the major public buildings of the facility’s program.

This space doubles as a central gathering

Corrections Buildings 21,327

space as well as a geoexchange borehole field. The geoexchange system utilizes stable groundwater temperatures to reduce heating and cooling loads. This field was sized utilizing a Utilizing a square footage per HVAC ton per borehole ratio, with the heating and cooling loads for the facility being established based on specific thermostat setpoints. These setpoints take into account an expanded comfort zone on the psychrometric chart afforded by the greatly increased natural ventilation in each building.

The constructed wetland for the living machine also needed to be sized. To do so, standards for wastewater production in prisons were utilized to estimate maximum wastewater effluent in the facility. A standard was established for the gallons of effluent per square foot by examining other living machines currently in use; this yielded a multiplier that was used to size the wetland. Once purified, wastewater would be released into the stream, flow through the facility, and back into the bayou.

Type A Units

Type B Units

Type C Units

43,621

29,416

16,077

261,726 426,555

Heating Loads

353,694

500,072

28,437

34,442

45,152

17,918

270,912 Cooling Loads

394,196

585,514

568,740

HVAC load per building type

1,819,362 BTU/h

1,542,047 BTU/h

156 tons

128 tons

total HVAC load

Geoexchange Borehole Field

150-300 SF/ton x156 tons

~30,000 SF

geoexchange borehole field sizing Inmates

115 GPD

x600 inmates

Employees

10 GPD

x135 emplyees

Wastewater Production

Both of these facility-scale systems utilize site features in order to accomplish their tasks; the geoexchange system taps into groundwater, while the living machine utilizes surface wetlands and streams for its function.

1350 GPD

69,000 GPD

wastewater effluent Living Machine Capacity

1.7 GPD/SF x70,350 GPD

42,210 SF 69,000 GPD

living machine sizing

HOUSING TYPE A 8 inmates

somewhat introverted

HOUSING TYPE B 16 inmates

introvert-extrovert

HOUSING TYPE C

24 inmates

extroverted

STEEL PARAPET CAP

VERTICAL WD BOARD SIDING

VALANCE UNIT

EXPANDED METAL MESH AWNING

OPERABLE LOUVER

WD SILL WITH ROOF ANCHOR

24" PILE CAP

12" STEEL PILE

FINAL REVIEW MATERIALS