ICPA Planning and Design Hub: Building for Change
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For more than a century, the architectural language of corrections has been defined by windowless concrete and hardened steel. As correctional design continues to improve there is a globe shift away from punishment-first environments and toward spaces shaped by light, scale, and dignity.
That shift sits at the heart of the ICPA Planning and Design (P&D) Network’s Planning and Design Hub, a platform created to advance “humane and exemplary practices” in correctional environments. The Hub gathers evidence, tools, and real-world examples to help architects, planners, operators, and policymakers rethink not just what facilities look like, but why they exist in the first place.
At the center of the Hub is a disciplined pre-planning approach framed as a “Before You Begin” test. The intent is deliberately disruptive: pause long enough to interrogate necessity before a scope is written or a site is selected.
The “Before You Begin” philosophy is designed to force strategic reflection on goals, alternatives, and risks, and to prevent teams from defaulting to construction as a substitute for broader social policy solutions. In other words, justice infrastructure should not become the automatic answer to unmet social needs.
Kavan Appelgate, Chair of the ICPA P&D Network, said the Hub’s resources are structured to help teams clarify both objectives and process early.
“The resources within the Hub include tools to aid reflection on what needs to be achieved and how you will go about it. This ensures the ideal alignment between the infrastructure needs and its purpose,” Kavan said.
For practitioners navigating this complex pre-planning phase, the Hub points to the ICRC’s Towards Humane Prisons, a framework for assessing necessity and setting ethical, operational, and design baselines well before the first brick is laid.Where new facilities are truly required, the Hub emphasizes that design choices should be evidence-led and outcomes-focused. Over the past two to three decades, correctional planning has advanced rapidly as research has clarified how environments affect safety, behaviour, and rehabilitation.
Kavan argues that the physical setting has direct operational consequences. Therapeutic material palettes, access to daylight, and clear, legible layouts can reduce stress, support self-regulation, and encourage participation in education, treatment, and reintegration programs.
Architects, Kavan noted, are increasingly deploying daylighting strategies and therapeutic finishes to reduce the psychological harms associated with sterile, institutional environments. The goal is to replace sensory deprivation and hyper-control with spaces that support healthy routines and human engagement.
“Provide a normative (less institutional, more residential-like) and spatially stimulating living environment,” Kavan said.
He stressed that orientation toward natural light and outside views is not simply an aesthetic preference. Those features help residents maintain a stable sense of time and routine, reducing chronic anxiety associated with what researchers have long described as the “total institution.” In practical terms, a healthier environment can make engagement with programming easier and safer for both residents and staff, and it supports the stability people need for eventual re-entry.
Beyond wellbeing, contemporary correctional design is increasingly understood as a quiet statement of social expectations. Modern facilities can either reinforce the logic of containment, or communicate safety, respect, and the possibility of growth. Kavanbelieves the message matters.
“Convey, through the built environment, that people are capable of change and improvement,” he said.
In this approach, every square metre is shaped to promote positive social behaviours rather than simply constrain them. When the built environment signals that growth is expected, it can help set a psychological baseline that makes constructive choices more likely.
Delivering on humane outcomes also requires more than upgraded finishes. Kavan points to programmatic variety as a core principle, moving beyond simple cell blocks to dedicated spaces for education, vocational training, health and counselling, multi-faith practice, family connection, and restorative activities.
This diversity reflects what a growing body of evidence continues to show: environment shapes behaviour, and purpose-built spaces can support different pathways to change.
The Hub also addresses one of the most enduring legacies of the old “fortress” model: the deliberate alienation of facilities from the communities they serve, often creating social and visual black holes.
Current strategies, by contrast, emphasize siting, form, and scale that reduce stigma and enable constructive links to local services and support networks. Smaller, appropriately sized facilities can improve outcomes by enabling clearer operations, more focused attention, and reduced anxiety and isolation.
“Create appropriate sized facilities; smaller facilities allow for effective, focused attention and reduce inmate isolation and anxiety,” Kavan emphasised.
Wayfinding, visual openness, and coherent circulation are also framed as operational choices, not design flourishes. Legible layouts and navigable spaces can reduce unnecessary tension and support daily routines, contributing to safety, dignity, and program access. However innovative the architecture becomes, Kavane insists it must be anchored by an unshakeable ethical baseline. The Hub uses international human rights standards as foundational reference points for early-stage decision-making.
Key resources highlighted in the Hub include:
• The UN Beijing Rules, ensuring specialised design considerations for juvenile justice.
• The Nelson Mandela Rules, the global standard for the humane treatment of all prisoners.
• The UN Bangkok Rules, addressing gender-sensitive needs and circumstances of women in custody.
Together, these standards act as an “ethical compass,” ensuring that modernisation does not drift away from core requirements of dignity and legal protection.
The P&D Hub is intended to function as a global laboratory and library of shared expertise, offering practitioners and policymakers a window into projects that apply these principles in the real world.
Examples cited through the Hub include the Rivergum Residential Treatment Centre, which foregrounds treatment-led housing, and the New Cuyo Federal Penitentiary Complex, illustrating how contemporary standards and evidence can shape built outcomes.
As correctional design continues to evolve, the Hub’s goal is to make progress more visible, more shareable, and more actionable across jurisdictions.
Kavan’s final challenge is as philosophical as it is practical. If buildings can communicate what a society expects of its people, then the question is unavoidable: If a building can convey that change is possible, what do current correctional environments communicate about the outcomes we expect, and the values we choose to uphold?
The ICPA Planning and Design Hub is available to all network members. Interested in joining? Submit your application below!
