A house is a house is a house

a house is a house is a house

What is the variation in the different types of houses? ‘In the Netherlands, there are many great examples of small-scale housing forms that could (partly) be used as detention houses. They have been around for decades and are already being used in many different ways. So…we have the houses…we have the knowledge … and we have the network … Why are people still going to prison instead of going to different types of houses? We will talk about this during the Livestream ‘A house is a house is a house.’

a house is a house is a house

in 2121…
many different types of [detention] houses
are fully integrated into communities

in 2121…
many different types of [detention] houses are fully integrated into communities

RESCALED

Through decades, the concept of prison has stayed the same, along with measures like control, security and isolation [7]. Today, these measures take place with new and extended technologies. Although the appearance is modernised, our built environment continues as an extension of the 19th century design.[8]

Many of today’s prisons are outdated – built for another purpose in another time. When building new prisons, the past is repeated. These old prisons, or new prisons with this old design, often make it challenging to apply the current European penology in practice.

RESCALED therefore suggests that we think differently within modern European legislation and penology. We propose an alternative, which we believe is a better fit for the 21st century: small-scale, differentiated and community-integrated detention houses.

Detention houses are small-scale, differentiated and community-integrated, and offer a sustainable and future-oriented approach. This will be beneficial not only for those incarcerated [9], but also for their friends and families, staff [10], local communities [11] and society at large [12]. Our vision is that one day, societies are inclusive, safe and sustainable.

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

– Albert Einstein

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

– Albert Einstein

Annie Kountz

MASS Design Group

Annie is a Senior Associate at MASS Design Group who joined MASS in 2021. Prior to MASS, Annie designed and managed architectural projects focused on social and racial justice. This ranged from supportive housing, schools, early education centers, community centers and restorative justice centers for non-profits and public agencies in New York City. Her projects received multiple awards in New York state and nationally.

At MASS, she is currently working on the design of an affordable housing and health care project. She works with the Restorative Justice Design Lab, which leverages architecture to imagines alternatives, highlight spatial injustices, and advocate for decarceration and prison abolition.

Indira van ’t Klooster

Director Arcam

Indira van ‘t Klooster has been director of Arcam since 1 November 2019. At Pakhuis de Zwijger she presents Architecture Now, on current themes in architecture. Author of Reactivate! Innovators of Dutch Architecture. In the past year she has been exploring with many parties how a city model with digital layers can be a tool in the use of data for the big design questions for the future.

The struggle for visibility, acceptance, and protection for all the residents of Amsterdam is far from over. With the exhibition Safe Spaces at Arcam, Indira van ‘t Klooster invites us to consider selected instances of how architecture or design has contributed to the visibility and safety of certain social groups and to reflect upon their impact.

Veronique Aicha Achoui

National coordinator RESCALED Netherlands

Veronique is national coordinator of RESCALED Netherlands. With a background in social psychology, she has been working in the sector of criminal justice reform for more than ten years. Veronique previously worked in Balkan countries Albania, Kosovo and North-Macedonia for human rights organization Netherlands Helsinki Committee within the criminal justice system, was chair of the Dutch branch of European Prison Education Association and now works for Restorative Justice Netherlands, an organization working on restorative justice and transformative justice.

Annie Kountz

MASS Design Group

Indira van ’t Klooster

Director Arcam

Veronique Aicha Achoui

National coordinator RESCALED Netherlands

Our mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity.

– MASS Design Group

Our mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity.

– MASS Design Group

MASS DESIgN GROUP

Their mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. Helping build a climate positive future is imperative. MASS projects move beyond just issues of energy use and efficiency, to holistically design the project ecosystem, including an entire supply chain that is sustainable, resilient, and regenerative. One Health design is a strategy that produces diverse, healthy, and productive habitats for human, animal, and ecological growth.

MASS has a team of over 140+ architects, landscape architects, engineers, builders, furniture designers, writers, filmmakers, and researchers representing 20 countries across the globe. In 2020, MASS was named the Architecture Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, for their origins in healthcare and designing architecture as a medium for healing.

Arcam is the architecture centre of Amsterdam. Arcam focuses on architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture. They organise programmes about architecture and urban development. Their exhibitions, debates, and research projects are accessible, yet critical; mindful of history, but always with an outlook towards the future. Arcam explores the current urban tasks and ambitions that will impact the city in the coming years.

Arcam is currently showing the exhibition Safe Spaces. Using banners, flags, and buildings, different groups in society make themselves more visible. Such claims to space in the city can be fleeting or transitory (through demonstrations), can manifest through semi-permanent expressions (of colours or logos), or through permanent architectures and urban developments. Such visibilities are not risk, but can also offer protection. In this exhibition, Arcam explores how design can contribute to visibility in the act of appropriation of the urban built environment.

ACRAM

Designing Cities For All

– Pakhuis de Zwijger

Designing Cities For All

– Pakhuis de Zwijger

Pakhuis de zwijger

Pakhuis de Zwijger is an accessible, independent and safe public meeting place for everyone. A contemporary ‘talking house’ with a strong online environment that has opted for dialogue as a form of conversation. A place where they jointly formulate ambitions and present different opinions and insights in order to arrive at creative solutions for the urgent and complex social issues of our time; where we bring artists and designers together with scientists, policymakers, practitioners and citizens in all their diversity. Where together they visualize the city and metropolitan region of tomorrow, test research results against everyday practice and present technological and social innovation as alternatives to current policy and actual reality. And finally, above all, a place where a lot of questions are asked, while embracing and tackling social issues.

In 2021, RESCALED Netherlands will enter into a partnership with Pakhuis de Zwijger, a cultural center, to further develop the idea of a detention house within the circular city of the near future in their program ‘Designing Cities For All’.

‘In the context of the super-diverse city, how can designers contribute to the creation of inclusive cities for, and by everyone? ‘Cities of Belonging’, as we would call them, cities in which everyone feels and is allowed to feel at home. Not only in a spatial sense but also with regard to the digital domain and relating to the design of our public systems, services, and products.’ – Designing Cities For All

Designing cities for all

In 2021, RESCALED Netherlands will enter into a partnership with Pakhuis de Zwijger, a cultural centre, to further develop the idea of a detention house within the circular city of the near future in their program ‘Designing Cities For All’.