“Part of the research I did for that game is I went around to Alcatraz in San Francisco because I wanted to have a level where you break into a prison,” Chris Delay, one of Introversion’s co-founders said in an interview.

“I started working on how to simulate a prison and how it was going to work. It was then that it occurred to me that building a prison was quite good fun, and that it shouldn’t be, but it is.” — business.financialpost.com

The off-screen protagonist of Herman's House, Herman Wallace, already has a dwelling for his body: a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, aka Angola. But the documentary's on-screen protagonist, Jackie Sumell, wants him also to have a place for his soul: a dream house for a man who desperately needs dreams. — npr.org

At one time, the dorm housed as many as 40 or 50 prisoners packed together like sardines, according to Caperton. The plan is to convert the space into two or three one-bedroom apartments, which is a considerably more comfortable arrangement than the last residents of the building had. Caperton says that in the 1980s and '90s Lorton Prison had a reputation for being dangerously overcrowded. — wamu.org

in professional practice, there’s a tendency to lose track of the initial spark that drew us to the profession and fall into a routine of designing similar projects for a familiar client type without thinking too deeply about it. It’s hard to make any money in the profession without a certain amount of repetition and standardization. So when a project comes along that challenges your values, that would be a good time to reconnect with the reasons you got into your profession in the first place. — thepolisblog.org

On any given night in the U.S., there are approximately 60,500 youth confined in juvenile correctional facilities or other residential programs. Photographer Richard Ross has spent the past five years criss-crossing the country photographing the architecture, cells, classrooms and inhabitants of these detention sites. — wired.com

499.SUMMIT is a conceptual proposal for a futuristic high-rise urban penitentiary in Jersey City which seeks to challenge the conventions of traditional prison design. The project, a collaborative effort by grad students Andreas Tjeldflaat and Gregory Knobloch, was part of the PennDesign studio FUTURE PRISON DESIGN. — bustler.net

Breaking Out and Breaking In is an exploration of the use and misuse of space in escapes and heists, where architecture is the obstacle between you and what you're looking for. — bldgblog.blogspot.com

Anthony Stephens offered up his euology for Ricardo Legorreta. "Ricardo Legorreta is the reason I began to study architecture...The spaces he designed had something long gone from most architects, soul. Unlike so many of the steel, glass and white wall designs that seem so clever and popular nowadays, his buildings could convey a feeling to those that laid eyes on the spaces he designed."

Shigeru Ban, known for his paper tube structures and disaster relief projects, as well as several ground-breaking homes in Japan, has produced a small minimum security prison. Just eight blocks north of the Americano, the Shutter House opens and closes it’s tightly perforated metal shutters as the warden sees fit. — barkitecturemag.com

In a move that could be viewed by some as a regression to the late 1800s when convicts were shipped from England to Van Diemens Land (Australia), a local prison will next week begin a trial housing inmates within shipping containers converted into maximum security cells. Political proponents calim they are safe, secure and cheap; civil libetarians say they are inhumane and not secure.   — Inhabitat