This document discusses the objectives that should guide prison design according to prison architecture historian Norman Johnston. Johnston concludes that prison design should have a realistic understanding of group living in institutions, design teams must take responsibility for unintended consequences of their proposals, and architectural environments must minimize risks to prisoners and officers while also being stimulating. Johnston also notes that large prisons will inevitably be unsuccessful and that ongoing evaluation of prison design and performance is needed to continuously improve prison architecture.

1. Scotland rebuilds prisons and employs the Design Quality Method ®
Prison design occupies an
important place in the history
of architecture - and present
practice in Scotland...
Norman Johnston, a leading prison
architecture historian, asks what
architecture can do to create an effective
prison, and concludes that several
objectives should steer the design of
prisons in the near future:
1. Prison design should have a realistic
appreciation of group living in institutions
2. Design teams must take responsibility
for unintended indignities and
consequences of their proposals
3. Architectural environments must
minimise the physical and psychological
risks to both prisoners and prison
officers
4. Environments should be stimulating
and humane, within obvious security
restraints, by using varied colours,
surfaces and spaces
5. Prisons should be modest in size –
large prisons will inevitably be
unsuccessful.
Time is the fourth dimensions in
architecture, and Johnston concludes
with the following indictment to further
learning from post occupancy review
and building performance evaluation:
‘Given some of the design innovations
and plans that have evolved in the
United States and elsewhere in the final
decades of the twentieth century, it
would be tempting to conclude that
prison architecture may have finally
come of age. But the creation of
satisfactory structures for
imprisonment has remained an
elusive goal. The shining new prisons
of today can be judged only through
usage and experience’.
Norman Johnston, Forms of constraint:
a history of prison architecture, 2000.
Post occupancy evaluation (POE)
is essential to continuously
improve a programme of building
procurement and learn lessons.
The programme of POE work for the Scottish Prison Service has led to the
development of a seventh DQM matrix for prisons, which addresses the
specific issues of prison design. HM Prison Inspectorate uses the six
criteria of safety; security; decency; environment; layout; and community;
for prison inspections. These same criteria are adopted by the DQM team.Prisons
DQM ®
Scottish prisons POE