How prison design can encourage rehabilitation

Architects will design a wide range of facilities in their careers, from gymnasiums and spas to hospitals and rehabilitation centres, where wellbeing and personal growth are central to the design briefs. Yet it is often less of a priority, or not mentioned at all, when we talk about our prisons.

At Pick Everard, we have been working closely with the Ministry of Justice to create world-class prison facilities that promote real rehabilitation of inmates back into society. Ensuring this proper rehabilitation comes from having the right environments, with our team playing a vital role in bringing key design elements together to meet the requirements.

For the future integration of reformed prisoners within society, it is crucial that prison environments foster and support rehabilitation, whether classroom and work spaces or more general living quarters. Academics have recognised this fact, with a broad selection of research emphasising the clear link between the built environment and prisoner health, along with that of staff and visitors.

Professor Alan Dilani explored this further through his salutogenic architecture concept, which explores how a built space should be designed and developed with the intention of promoting health, happiness, and wellbeing among its users.

The concept outlines that a building must have a sense of coherence, defined through three aspects. Firstly, the way the user understands the space must be clear so they can navigate its purpose through a structured and logical layout. In turn, this informs the second aspect of how well a user can manage the space without undue stress. Finally, the third aspect focuses on a space’s purpose, placing precedence on an eloquent, suggestive and revealing environment over one that is closed or cut off.

These key aspects of coherence are about making the environment as readable and as understandable as possible, something particularly important for people who suffer from acute mental health issues. Given that prisons have the highest concentration of mental health conditions besides hospitals, this must play a role in our approach to prison design to ultimately feed into fostering positive rehabilitation.

Further research showcases the positive effect nature has on prisoners, much in the same way it impacts us all. Professor Dominique Moran uncovered a correlation between the proximity to nature and lower levels of self-harm and violence, with positive benefits also felt by staff as a knock-on impact from lower levels of stress and fewer absences due to illness or poor health.

The salutogenic approach to architecture and biophilic design combine to deliver a psychosocially supportive approach to prison design. However, in promoting a model framework for the current and ongoing analysis of prison design, it is not enough simply for an architectural team to understand its requirement in isolation.

At Pick Everard, we endeavour to utilise our close connection to academia in each of our prison projects. In doing so, we are creating spaces that support prisoners and staff in their everyday objectives now and for the future, while also balancing key outcomes around security and sustainability for the client too.

There are plenty of opportunities to incorporate biophilia into prison estate design, such as outwards views of landscaping and greenery, access to natural light and interior design approaches. Coordinating these with a security-centric approach means that the space created follows good design principles, fosters rehabilitation, and ensures safety all at once.

Ultimately, to achieve supportive prison design, all stakeholders from the government and prison management organisations through to operational staff - and indeed prisoners themselves - must be unified in the ambition to deliver modern centres of true rehabilitation.