It sounds odd to say, but it’s nonetheless true: we punish people with architecture. The building is the method. We put criminals in a locked room, inside a locked structure, and we leave them there for a specified period of time.
It wasn’t always so. Prison is an invention, and a fairly recent one at that: it wasn’t until the 18th century that incarceration became our primary form of punishment. True, there have been dungeons and the like for quite some time, but they were generally for traitors and political enemies and, later, debtors.
Rethinking Prison Design via NYT Magazine
Related links:
www.archinect.com
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