Highfalutin design comes in all manner of packages—dentists' offices, pharmacies, fashion boutiques—so it shouldn't be a surprise that a Spanish penitentiary looks, well, like this. The architects at AiB and Estudi PSP Arquitectura conceived a chiseled green sprawl for a prison complex near Tarragona, Spain, a project that, as AiB architect Roger Paez explains to Dezeen, "has the potential to spark a debate on how architecture relates to social betterment." The structures of Mas d'Enric Penitentiary slink in the surrounding forest, low-slung and painted green, and the architects' scheme to incorporate the neighboring topography—each cell has a woodland view—and provide airy courtyards plays into their plan to create a "non-oppressive environment," a not inconsiderable feat for a structure designed to shelter law-breakers. Find more photos, including a few shots of the inside, below.
Take it away, architecture babble!
· Mas d'Enric Penitentiary by AiB and Estudi PSP Arquitectura [Dezeen]
· All Globe Trotting posts [Curbed National]