Loft out

Abstract

How can we move from an extremely prescriptive institution to one that empowers not only the users of the building, but also the whole neighbourhood and, ultimately, the whole city?
A Victoria Kent Social Integration Centre, formally known as Yeserías Prison, is the main focus and starting point of my design.
Of the twenty-one prisons that operated during the Franco regime, CIS Victoria Kent is the only one still functioning as a penitentiary institution. The rest of the former prisons have been returned to their original educational or religious functions or, to bury an uncomfortable history, have been demolished and the land sold to profit-seeking developers for housing. This building contains an important part of the city's history, having originally been built in the late 1920s as a beggar's asylum, then as a prison for political prisoners and finally as a women's prison. Currently, the building serves as a social integration centre for third-grade male inmates.
The main ambition is to challenge the prison to become an open institution and a valuable asset to the city and the community. Both spatially and programmatically - how can such a structured and controlled space become an system that opens the guarded wall to the community and helps inmates make a more seamless transition back into society?