There's a lot of messed up prisons around the world.
But I found this one to be the most disturbing.
It's a fictional prison from the show ANDOR and it's designed
specifically for convicts that are says to be labor worthy.
It can hold up to 5000 inmates and they're grouped into these work teams.
And day after day, they work together to assemble these mechanical parts.
But no one actually knows what they're building.
The genius part about this prison is that the control
mechanism is built directly into the architecture.
For example, thes tungsten steel floors can fry you and it can even kill you.
It's also designed to make the prisoners
think that they're being constantly watched.
And this idea of constant surveillance makes them incredibly obedient.
And as we studied prisons more and more
a very disturbing idea started to pop up.
The purpose of prisons is to detain people.
Philosophically, it gets a little blurry when you start thinking about, you know,
if the purpose is to punish or to rehabilitate.
But functionally, it's a place meant to contain prisoners
and to keep the rest of society safe.
But what happens when the architecture itself
becomes the surveillor, the detainee and the Punisher?
A portion of this video is sponsored by Milanote.
This is the Panopticon.
It's an architectural concept for prisons
from the 18th century by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham,
The word panopticon derives from the Greek word for all seeing.
And it's designed around a central watchtower
where the guards can always have a view of the prisoners.
But the prisoners can't see the guards.
This creates the illusion of being constantly watched, meaning
there's a higher chance the prisoners are going to behave and self-regulate.
And the entire facility can be monitored by just a few guards.
So it's not just physical containment.
It's kind of a psychological control.
And this complete erosion of privacy
can lead to anxiety, paranoia and a loss of dignity.
Although this exact design was never implemented,
we've seen variations of this concept all over the world.
Most of these prisons were shut down.
But I think this architectural typology solidified a broader
social message and how society perceives prisoners.
It suggests that surveillance
and control are essential in managing criminal behavior, and it led us down
a path that focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation.
This is the sound of solitary confinement.
This is where they send prisoners who are considered to be a threat
to security or other inmates.
It's an empty room.
And the average size something around six by nine feet.
It's mostly windowless without any views or sunlight.
Prisoners spend up to 23 hours at a time,
and for one or 2 hours a day, they're let out into another isolated area.
And when you listen to stories of inmates who spent time there, what's amazing
is just how quickly their mental state starts to deteriorate.
And to understand why, let's take a look at another
type of detainment.
Everything in the room is white,
including the floors, beds, clothing, lights.
And even the food is white.
The rooms are completely soundproof and the lights
are designed to remove any kind of shadows.
It's called the White Room torture.
And it's a form of psycho logical torture using complete sensory deprivation.
And it can leave permanent psychological damage.
One political prisoner who endured white torture
for eight months couldn't even remember the faces of his parents.
And that's
because a normal brain needs interaction and activity for the cells to grow.
And studies show that when you remove stimulation, the brain freaks out.
And it can cause anxiety and depression.
And because the brain is constantly
trying to establish patterns, it can also lead to hallucinations.
In fact, just 15 minutes of sensory deprivation can lead to anhedonia,
which is the complete inability to feel pleasure.
And of course, solitary confinement is not as controlled as a white room torture.
But there's just so many parallels that it's kind of hard to ignore.
Solitary confinement can also leave permanent psychological
and physical damage.
And despite the backlash from multiple human rights organizations,
it's still a very common
practice in prisons throughout the world, especially in the U.S..
In all of these cases, what's really interesting is that
architecture is not used just for physical containment
or a functional necessity, but it's use for psychological dominance.
One, two.
It seems to have an 818 and you feel it
for 814.
Otherwise, a714.
And I think this is where the dilemma is, especially for architects.
Architecture, at its core is supposed to serve the public.
It's actually ingrained in the profession and it's even in the air code of ethics.
Architects must uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors
and make the built environment accessible
to all and respect the dignity of all people.
Yes, we need prisons to protect the broader public from criminals.
But the line becomes kind of blurry when the architecture is designed
specifically for the purpose of causing harm to another
human being.
If you've been following this channel, you probably know that we use Milanote.
to organize all of our research, and they're also sponsoring this video.
We use Milanote from the brainstorming, storyboarding to the final research,
and pretty much for anything that needs to be organized visually.
I've even created my own template port
with guidelines so that we can copy over every time we start a new project.
Some of our team is remote, so being able to share and edit the boards
in real time during our meetings makes everything so seamless.
It's replaced a lot of apps for us because it's super dynamic and simple.
It's definitely improved my workflow,
so I think it's going to help you as well, no matter what industry you're in.
It's completely free with no time limit, so you can sign up
using the link in the description and let me know if you guys like it.
This is considered to be one
of the most effective prisons in the world.
The Halden Prison in Norway.
And when I say effective, I'm talking about the recidivism rate,
which is the tendency for a convict to re-offend.
Halden has a rate of 20% compared to the 76%,
which is the average for prisons in the US.
And of course, there's a whole lot of factors
outside the prison environment that impact this number.
And many prisons in the U.S.
are actually operated by private companies who make a profit
from the prison population.
So maybe there is an incentive to keep them in the system.
But Halden success is the result of
actually a pretty simple idea.
Normality, meaning the prison should resemble life outside as much as possible.
They have workshops, music and recording studios, a worship room.
They even have a place where your family can stay overnight.
As of 2012, Halden had 340 staff members
for only 228 inmates.
That's more than one per prisoner.
Kind of the opposite of the idea of the efficient automated control
that we see in Narkina 5.
But this prison is in Norway.
So is it even a fair comparison?
Norway has about a 1/60 of the population of the U.S.
The incarceration rate is about 75 per 100,000 people.
Within the U.S., it's about 700 per 100,000,
which is about 9.3 times higher than Norway.
This also means Norway can spend a lot more money per prisoner.
Norway spends around $127,000 per prisoner a year,
compared to just $25,000 in the US.
But actually it wasn't always like this.
Before the nineties,
Norway also had a recidivism rate similar to the U.S.
70% and a rising prison population.
And in fact it was
because they found these to be so not cost effective
in the long run that they took a hard look at their approach.
During this time, there was also more and more research coming out that talked
about the limitations of prison models that are focused primarily on punishment.
Also, there was just more awareness around human rights issues
and more awareness around the treatment of prisoners.
And the people actually start to push for something more ethical.
And so all of this led to some major changes in their approach,
where they went from a punitive model to a rehabilitation model.
And that actually had a huge impact on the architecture.
Most of these prisons fall into one of these categories circular
or the panopticon layout with a central watchtower and salt
along the perimeter courtyard layout with the structure
encircling a central open area, triangular layout with triangular structures
connected by a spine linear layout with rows of buildings
stacked along a central spine x shaped layout with a cross shaped form
and the radial layout with branches, they come off a central point.
Apparently they'd rotate the prisoners to these different arms
so they can never familiarize themselves with where they are
and the prison and Andor would fall into this category.
But with the sleeping quarters at the perimeter, by consolidating
all the facilities into a single continuous building,
it maximizes efficiency because you can limit the circulation to
just a few hallways,
which means you can be a lot more efficient with your surveillance.
In Narkina 5.
This is taken to the street and even the cells are stripped
to the bare essentials and designed for maximum efficiency and control.
All the basic amenities like beds, toilets, food,
water are neatly compact in the cell.
This unit gives you access to unlimited bland food,
but if you're productive enough, you can be rewarded with flavor.
There's a screen that displays the amount of days that's left in your sentence.
And while there aren't any doors there's sensors
that ensure that there's only one person in a cell.
Otherwise, you'll get fried.
The sanitation areas are right before you enter the work room.
And all of this is to limit the amount of movement
from work directly to your cells.
But in this new model, the facilities are split
between the smaller buildings, surrounded by a natural landscape.
All of this is contained in this perimeter wall, kind of like a campus.
This means they can move around rather than being restricted to the same hallways
day after day.
But what does that mean for surveillance?
Historically, security was achieved through the architecture,
through the spatial layout, with windowless walls,
locks, fences, even cameras and CC systems.
Let's call this static security.
But it usually comes at the expense of creating spaces that are kind of inhumane.
Narkina 5 prison while is a very technologically advanced.
It still operates on the principles of static security,
which allows them to have this insane 1: 100 guard to prisoner ratio.
But despite all the rigorous physical and psychological control mechanisms,
static security failed to spot the communication between the prisoners.
And this was potentially an oversight on the architect
who maybe tried to add a little bit too much humanity to this prison.
Technically, if we're strictly abiding by the principles of static security,
these windows are not necessary.
In fact, it became the fatal flaw of this design
because allowing them to look outside the inmates could get a sense of the scale
of the prison and understand just how many of them there were
and maybe even start to communicate with each other.
So without a design, that's 100% bulletproof.
Static security has some major limitations,
especially because it can antagonize and potentially provoke the inmates.
But in
Halden and in the
other humane prisons that we looked at, they've come up with a layer of security
that's invisible, that allows them to reduce the amount of static security.
At Halden they call this dynamic security.
But essentially it's the relationship between the inmates and the staff
created intentionally through workshops and activities.
But it only works if we flip the rule
of the architecture from a surveiller to a facilitator
by breaking up the massing and creating a diversity of spaces.
You facilitate movement and interaction by using colors and warm materials.
It helps regulate mood
and create a sense of comfort by placing windows strategically
for daylight and views and even views onto the cells of other inmates.
You reduce stress and improve mental health.
They can track the days and the seasons, and it gives the inmates
a psychological connection to the outside world
in this very constrained environment.
The prisoner actually built a very intimate relationship with their space,
and it can either facility growth
or lead to a complete decline.
And beyond this, I think our approach to prisons says a lot about us as a society.
Do we believe in the potential for change in every person?
Is there a room for dignity and healing and redemption,
even for the worst criminals?
What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.