Surrounded by woodland, the Mas d'Enric Penitentiary occupies a sprawling site that is invisible to the nearby town, so the architects planned a series of low-rise cell blocks surrounded by large outdoor spaces.

"The Mas d'Enric Penitentiary is a pioneering socially-inclusive prison like no other, which reclaims the penitentiary as an object of architectural design," explains AiB architect Roger Paez. "It has the potential to spark a debate on how architecture relates to social betterment."

The chiselled rooftops were added by AiB and PSP as a reference to the surrounding topography and are coloured in different shades of green.

The sloping topography also comes into play in the courtyards, where stepped levels differentiate spaces, rather than fenced partitions. The architects expect this to give flexibility between spaces, but also to create a "non-oppressive environment".

Each courtyard borders the perimeter of the site, giving prisoners a view out towards the woodland, and prison cells also face out towards the trees.

Another modern prison design on Dezeen is a competition-winning scheme for a new state prison on a Danish island. Meanwhile, a number of prison conversions have taken place recently, including a boutique hotel in the Netherlands and a civic and cultural centre in Palencia, Spain. See more stories about prisons.

Photography is by Jose Hevia.

Here's some more information from AiB:

Mas d'Enric Penitentiary, El Catllar, Tarragona
A i B arquitectes + Estudi PSP Arquitectura

I

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.

A prison must respond to the demand for discipline (confinement) and liberty (reinsertion) at the same time. Within this complex framework, architecture can make use of its ability to synthetically articulate problems that seem contradictory to become an active agent in resolving the paradox of the contemporary penitentiary.

Based on our experience with the Mas d'Enric penitentiary, we claim the prison as an object of critical design and we reclaim architecture's role in multiplying possibilities as opposed to limiting them.

II

Given very strict programmatic requirements, a series of decisions forges a link between the utilitarian and the conceptual: the construction of an appropriable, non-oppressive environment; the introduction of a maximum number of vectors of exteriority; and the generation of open space that is central both formally and conceptually.

Three keys aspects permeate the entire design process and serve as the conceptual horizons that articulate the project:

Totality: Tackling the problem of designing a total environment.
Vibration: Introducing spatial and perceptual diversity
Openness: Celebrating openness in the heart of detention.

III

Both typological and topological design strategies are central to the Mas d'Enric Penitentiary project.

Typological: We aimed to move beyond conventional modern prison architecture by creating a revised mat-building: the prison is extensive in plan and low to the ground. Contiguity eliminates residual spaces between buildings. It also allows for organizational flexibility while generating exterior spaces in the form of courtyards on different scales.

Topological: The topographical adaptation allows for a gentle integration with the terrain. It creates spatial variety while allowing for the absence of any kind of interior fencing. Distant views of the mountains are made possible by an articulation of the ground level. Views of the adjacent woodlands improve conditions in both the cells and the courtyards.

The continuity of the roof works on both a typological and topological level, creating morphological unity for the building and establishing relationships with the large scale of the landscape. The confinement required by the program is not monumentalised; on the contrary, the prison's architecture faces up to the, perhaps impossible, challenge of creating a genuine home and hearth.

Above: location plan

Above: site plan - click for larger image

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: second floor plan

Above: site sections - click for larger image

Above: courtyard elevations - click for larger image

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by AiB and PSP appeared first on Dezeen.

A nineteenth century prison in the Netherlands has been converted into a boutique hotel where guests sleep in the former cells.

The Het Arresthuis jail in Roermond, which dates back to 1863, was in use for nearly 150 years before finally closing its doors in 2007. After a makeover from Dutch hotel group Van der Valk, a total of 105 prisoner cells are transformed into 40 rooms and suites that open out to a lounge in the old prison hallway.

The overhauled rooms have been filled with modern furnishings, yet each one retains its original door as to a nod to the history of the building. There are four luxury suites included, named The Jailer, The Lawyer, The Director and The Judge.

The courtyard now serves as a cafe and terrace surrounded by olive trees. Other facilities include a herb garden, a sauna and a number of hotel bars.

The Het Arresthuis hotel opened in spring 2011, but is not the first prison to be converted into a guesthouse. Others include the Malmaison Hotel in Oxford, England, and the Jailhotel Lowengraben in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Other prison conversions include a music school in France and a civic and cultural centre in Spain. Dezeen readers also think many new architecture projects look like prisons, from a windowless house in Japan to a student housing complex in Spain.

See more hotel interiors on Dezeen, including the Sleepbox Hotel in Moscow filled with portable sleeping capsules and a hotel room covered in QR codes that link to pornography.

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by Van der Valk hotels appeared first on Dezeen.

Constructed from load-bearing brickwork, the nineteenth century building comprises four wings that have been completely refurbished to accommodate an auditorium, a library, multi-function rooms and classrooms for art and music.

A translucent glass pavilion provides an entrance to the building, while new walls and roof structures have been created over and around the existing blocks using zinc and more semiopaque glass.

At the centre of the four wings is a new hall, inside which large round skylights extend down to create cylindrical light wells and miniature courtyards.

The library is contained within the wing that previously housed prisoner cell blocks and features a central reading area beneath an octagonal skylight.

Our other project this week by Exit Architects is a concrete sculpture museum, which you can see here.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here's some more text from Exit Architects:

Rehabilitation of Former Prison of Palencia as Cultural Civic Center

The former Palencia Provincial Prison complex was created at the end of the XIX century, built with brick bearing walls following the “neomudéjar” style, and composed mainly of four two-storey wings and some other with one storey.

On this building was planned a comprehensive refurbishment to transform the former use and convert it into a center that promotes the social and cultural activity in this part of the town.

Our proposal intends to convert the former prison into a meeting place, recovering some of the old spaces, and creating at the same time new structures that make possible the new planned activities.

It is a project that respects the existing building, which is given a contemporary, lighter appearance, and where the natural light will play a key role.

With this aim the main two-storey wings have been refurbished, emptying their interior and placing a new independent structure to bear the new floors and roofs. Besides, between the main wings have been built new connecting pavilions, which form the new complex perimeter and give it a modern and friendly aspect.

To introduce the light in the building we had to remove the old covered with tiles which were in very poor condition, and have been replaced by others of zinc that open large skylights which introduce light into the open halls of the Center.

The entire building is organized around a great hall that connects the 4 pavilions of the former prison. It is a diaphanous space based only on a few mild cylindrical courtyards of glass that illuminate and provide the backbone of the stay.

Due to its central location in relation to the pavilions, this space acts as a nerve center and distributor of users, across the Pavilion access and reception, directed towards the rest of the areas of the Centre.

The hall gives way to the lateral pavilions where the auditorium and various music and art classrooms are. On the upper floor, under a large glass skylights, are two multi-purpose areas dedicated to more numerous groups.

In the area where is the cells of prisoners were, we placed the library. The reading rooms are articulated around a central space of high-rise under a lantern of octagonal shape that acts as a distributor for the different areas and that arrives vertical communication and control areas and offices.

Finally, access to the Centre are carried out through a very light and bright glazed perimeter that pretends to be a filter between the city and the activity of the interior.

A structural steel beam travels abroad tying areas glazed with the former factory walls getting an alleged industrial air.

The use of metallic materials in all intervention, as the zinc in facades and roofs, glass and uglass in the lower bodies and skylights and the aluminium lattices as light filters also contributes to this.

architects: EXIT ARCHITECTS - ÁNGEL SEVILLANO / JOSÉ Mª TABUYO
location: AVDA. VALLADOLID Nº 26, 34034 PALENCIA
clients: MINISTERIO DE FOMENTO, AYUNTAMIENTO DE PALENCIA

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area: 5.077 m2
budget: 9.675.038 EUROS
project date: 2007
completion date: 2011
quantity surveyor: IMPULSO INDUSTRIAL ALTERNATIVO. ÁLVARO FERNÁNDEZ

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structural engineers: NB35. JOSÉ LUIS LUCERO
mechanical engineers: GRUPO JG. JUAN ANTONIO POSADAS
light consultant: MANUEL DÍAZ CARRETERO
collaborators: MARIO SANJUÁN, IBÁN CARPINTERO, MIGUEL GARCÍA-REDONDO, SILVIA N. GÓMEZ

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and Eduardo Delgado Orusco appeared first on Dezeen.

Danish architects C. F. Møller have won a competition to build a new state prison on the island of Falster in Denmark.

Laid out like a small village, the proposal will integrate various work and leisure facilities alongside green spaces, all linked by a network of streets with a six metre perimeter wall enclosing the prison.

Administration buildings, a library, a religious worship room, sports facilities, a shop and a central square will sit at the heart of the complex.

There will be five separate star-shaped prison blocks located on the outskirts of the facility, one of which will be high-security, where up to 250 prisoners will be housed.

Construction is due for completion in 2016.

Click for larger image

All our stories on C. F. Møller »

Here's some more information about the project

The winning proposal for Denmark’s new state prison on the island of Falster: C. F. Møller Architects has won the competition to build a new, closed state prison on the island of Falster.

The prison is uniquely designed as a small village and integrates several landscape features, among other things animal husbandry, within the perimeter wall.

Click for larger image

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.

The design creates an urban environment, interacting with the landscape on both sides of the six-metre tall perimeter wall. For this compact, urban structure means that there is also left space for natural and cultivated areas, areas for animal husbandry and for the integration of sports facilities in the landscape within the perimeter.

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Varied and stimulating environment

Mads Mandrup, who is architect and partner in C. F. Møller and responsible for this project, states: 

"The inmates spend all their waken hours in the prison environment, and the architecture within the prison walls is therefore an extremely important part of their lives and experiential universe. That is why we have deliberately created a very varied and stimulating environment of different spaces and landscape features - hopefully this will contribute to the re-socialization of the individual and to create renewed confidence in the community and mutual respect for society as a whole."

In the centre are an administration building, an occupation building and a cultural centre with library, religious worship room, sports facilities and a shop. Radiating outwards from here are the prison blocks - four ordinary block wings and one high security block wing.

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Each individual building in the total complex has its own identity. Overall, the complex is in a warm, grey shade of brick. Variation is provided by, amongst other things, the occupation building, which is crystal-shaped and faced with perforated metal plates in green shades, and the cultural centre, which is round, covered with glass and ringed by green slats. 

Dynamic, star-shaped perimeter
With its corners and variations, the six-metre tall, star-shaped perimeter wall creates a dynamic sequence which gives a less restrictive appearance by providing a sense of dialogue with the outside world.

C. F. Møller Architects has won the competition in collaboration with the engineering company Rambøll Denmark and in close dialogue with Marianne Levinsen Landscape, furthermore the design company aggebo&henriksen and the working environment consultants company CRECEA have contributed.

Eight teams participated
Eight teams were prequalified for the competition.

The other architectural companies participating were Arkitema, schmidt hammer lassen, Lundgaard & Tranberg, Erik Møller Arkitekter, PLH Arkitekter, a team of both Kjær & Richter and aart and a team of Henning Larsen Architects and Friis & Moltke,

The jury consisted of a number of expert judges, representatives of the Muncipality of Guldborgsund, representatives of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, the Danish Palaces and Properties Agency, and the Danish Prison and Probation Service.

See also:

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Prison by Guillermo Hevia García	Opera and Cultural Centre by C. F. Møller	Ferry Terminal by C. F. Møller

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Architects Guillermo Hevia García, José Tomás Rodríguez and Nicolás Urzúa have won a competition to reuse a former prison in Talca, Chile, as a public space and arena.

Called Espacio Talca, the project will involve punching circular holes in the exterior wall, paving the interior and creating a platform around the perimeter.

The venue will be used for concerts, political and sporting events, and will incorporate an underground car park.

See also: Olisur olive oil factory by Guillermo Hevia García

Here are some more details from the architects:

Espacio Talca

The proposal needs to combine a useful program for Talca while being viable and real; from a technical, social and economic standpoint. with a certain exaltation or value enhancement of local culture, represented mainly by the rural situation of the city. Talca is not a capital city or metro, which leads us to exclude a possible programmatic sophistication or complexity of the proposal.

It is proposed that the future of the prison will be a large public space surrounded by the historical wall, with the understanding that although there are public spaces in Talca, none of them are large enough to host activities that require such large capacities. These limited spaces also specifically lack the vacuum condition. Activities such as political, cultural and sporting events, concerts, fairs, Chilean traditional games, sports (soccer, basketball, tennis), or recreational activities are situations that feets in Espacio Talca.

In some ways the project aims to be able to host the spontaneous; a value that is a distinguishing feature of rural life. The rural space is a vacuum, something close to a paddock, which has no place or defined activities. The proposal for the Jail includes the capability and spatiality of the paddock, but with a civic and urban concept.

The main operations of the Project are six:

• Clean up the land inside the wall creating a vacuum and leaving the wall as a historical relic.
• Clean the status of Prison (confinement) drilling the wall to make it permeable.
• Generate a hard flat floor capable to host multiple programs.
• A partial deck at the perimeter and trees that create a shade protected area to walk and rest.
• Rehabilitation of buildings that give more value to the front as containers for service programs.
• Create an underground parking level to eliminate the negative impact of parking congestion.

The economic and social sustainability of the proposal is a key element, Espacio Talca aims to generate larger social benefits, in the sense that the proposal benefits the entire population of Talca for free and not to a specific division. At the same time the proposal generates incomes. Finally Talca will be positioned facing the region and the nation with a new flexible space that could have significant domestic demand for many events, but at times in the absence of such activities works as a rural and recreational space for the citizens.

See also:

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Olisur olive oil factory by Guillermo Hevia García	Conceptual Artjail	More architecture stories

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José Tomás Rodríguez and Nicolás Urzúa appeared first on Dezeen.