ISLAND OF HAPPY HEALING
Hong Kong
Short Brief
This proposal is focused on the controversial issue of correctional institutions and rehabilitation.
Hong Kong
Short Brief
This proposal is focused on the controversial issue of correctional institutions and rehabilitation.
The project accommodates the relocation of an existing number of Hong Kong inmates on the island of Hei Ling Chau. The proposal challenges traditional scepticism towards reformation of delinquency. It establishes a symbiotic relationship between prisoners and local communities as well as a new approach to the services provided by correctional institutions. The proposal creates a range of conditions from complete isolation to complete integration with the rest of the city. It provides a pleasant environment for the public and for new communities to settle. Overlaid systems of control are applied to hybrid developments, allowing a transitory journey of reformation to take place for inmates.
A Constant Journey
The mode of operation of the discipline is based in an allocation of individuals in space and a TIME distribution in SPACE. The proposed design uses the language of an architecture of time. The basic aim is the experience of life as if the prison was a journey, experiential and referential. Experiential as the user is sensing the instant and referential because this present experience is referred to previous or future ones, thus bringing together different moments in time. The design should help in building confidence, self-awareness, trust, co-operation, respect vital capacities when it comes to reforming attributes and behaviour.
The Levels
After a certain period in a prison’s level, the inmates can ‘penetrate’ to the next one and continue the ‘journey’. This implies an analytic space and the necessity of observation, review and assessment mechanisms which demand in their turn different degrees of visibility, transparency.
After a certain period in a prison’s level, the inmates can ‘penetrate’ to the next one and continue the ‘journey’. This implies an analytic space and the necessity of observation, review and assessment mechanisms which demand in their turn different degrees of visibility, transparency.