Research

We can't build our way out of this.

This suggests an abolitionist research agenda and ideally, that would be true. 

It is broadly acknowledged, however, that prisons will continue to have a function in keeping communities safe and they will continue to be designed and constructed into the foreseeable future. 

Even though it seems impossible to some, it is likely that prisons as they have evolved since the early 1800s as places of enclosure and exclusion will become something else where the needs of those inside are addressed in another way.  

Situating 

All research looks beyond the horizon. The concern of this research field is in the apparent failures of a global system that appears to damage rather than heal. Surely, there is another way. It seems impossible to think of the prison as something else and the binary positions of abolitionist thinking and public perceptions of justice are a chasm that feels un-bridgable. The situating of this research is best explained by Arturo Escobar noting Thomas Berry's view of being in transitions, "We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story". Discovering the new story of social justice and well-being to arrive at a future alternative to prisons as they are now is the goal of my research.

Catalyst

There was a time in my PhD on citizen-informed design for prisons,  where, as part of it being practice-based, the findings were exhibited for feedback. Some responses argued that being in prison was the culmination of many bad things that had happened to a person that contributed to them being there and that "architecture" was not going to change that history or heal the person. Sure; there are examples of prisons around the world that seek to heal through design and prison architects do their best to embed design initiatives for rehabilitation, but this is on the terms and within the definitions of the institution that facilitates what is increasingly being described as “Institutional Violence”.  

Research Perspective

Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Cop City, Climate and other socio-political movements demand their governments address structural social inequities and loosen their hold of centralised institutional power to communities as they believe they can do better. This shift in global expectations of community-based solutions and a stop to further institutional violence is acknowledged by the International Corrections and Prison Association. Even the ICPA can feel the tremors of change as they indicate the inevitability of prisons not being the same warehouse – community exclusion environments as they currently exist in most parts of the world. We do know that prisons will exist in some form into the future. At this point, we can't see an alternative architecture that blurs the location of the walls of the prison back into the community. This is the area of future research and where you can join me to collaborate on projects on the architecture of the non-prison. 

Areas of Research + Collaboration - 'Building with an end in sight'

• The blurring of carceral geographies: the architecture of future [non]prisons
• Community lead alternatives to prison
• Architecture of Restorative Justice