The Prison Landscape: Redefining Built Form to Support Rehabilitation

Abstract

Correctional institutions of Correctional Services Canada have been developed to maximize efficiency in security, control, circulation, cost, and use of resources. Often this utilitarian and functionalist approach fails to consider the human experience side of this landscape, and has negative effects on the primary goals of these facilities: rehabilitation. Rehabilitation provides a platform for offenders to rebuild essential life skills and self-sufficiency to successfully reintegrate with society. With declining crime rates, increasing prison populations and high recidivism rates, it suggests that the current model is an easy, but not effective response to crime. Through analyzing Cowansville Institution, a medium-security federal facility near Montreal, Canada, this thesis aims to develop a set of design guidelines for updating the existing prison landscape to better meet the goals of rehabilitation through methods of normative design and encouraging relationships within and beyond the walls, while maintaining user safety.