Archinect - News

NYC announces $7 billion design and construction contracts for two borough-based jails

2024-05-21T15:54:00-04:00

The New York City Department of Design and Construction has issued two new contracts for what will become the first two facilities in the city's progressive borough-based jails system. The bids from Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp. for the $3.9 billion new Queens jail and Transformative Reform Group for the $2.9 billion Bronx project were announced along with an intention to use a design-build approach to "speed up" construction along an accelerated track.

The completion of the jails is expected in 2031. In the Bronx, the jail is scheduled for delivery at 745 E. 141st St. in Mott Haven. In Queens, where activists have led a local fight that mirrors the effort to halt the new 'superjail' in Chinatown/Lower Manhattan, the new facility will take shape at 26-02 82nd Avenue in Kew Gardens, requiring a preliminary demolition. The total cost of replacing Rikers Island, which has turned into a human rights eyesore, is estimated at under $15.5 billion. Its mandated shutdown still looms f...

Demolition work for Lower Manhattan's superjail is making Chinatown residents 'terrified'

2024-04-09T15:16:00-04:00

The demolition of ‘The Tombs’ Manhattan Detention Complex to prepare for the 300-foot ‘Jailscraper’ (aka the ‘Chinatown Jail’) in Lower Manhattan is meting out further headaches for residents around the Columbus Park area, the majority of whom are elderly, ABC7 reported recently.

Cracks and other noticeable damage are now beginning to appear in adjacent structures as the 900-bed behemoth is being taken down in advance of the construction of a controversial new facility that is promoted as being more ‘humane’ than its predecessor and the city’s Rikers Island facility — despite activists’ criticisms.

"We absolutely do not trust Gramercy Group with anything anymore," a member of the group Neighbors United Below Canal told journalists. "They violated the trust of this community. They violated the trust of the building next door. They've cracked their building. There's water seeping into this building as we speak."

In response, Councilmember Christopher Marte has asked the city's Buildin...

The crisis at Rikers Island could spark a radical shift in the way architects approach prison design

2021-09-28T09:00:00-04:00

The question of how to remake the city’s jails has sharply divided city officials, who are intent on maintaining lockups, advocates for prison rights and even architects. As the city pushes for new designs that might make its jails feel more humane, many activists and some city officials are pushing for the city to invest more in social services in underserved communities, which could keep people out of prison to begin with.

A total of twelve people have died at Rikers this year alone. Unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and a staffing shortage have only added to the growing chorus of voices calling to shut down the 400-acre prison, which the city has announced plans to do by 2027.

The nearly $9 billion replacement initiative would add a borough-based jail system using updated guidelines that were crafted last year through a coalition of planners, community activists, and city agencies, although some architects continue to view prison reform as essentially a moral issue and not one that can necessarily be erased by better or more humane design techniques. The AIA officially updated its Code of Ethics in December to reflect some of the ascendent thinking surrounding the issue.

“You cannot make an unjust space more just by creating more natural light,” NOMA president Pascale Sablan said. The Times has more on the movement toward progressive prison design in New York City here.

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Construction of New York City's first borough-based jail underway in Queens

2021-07-16T17:17:00-04:00

Construction on NYC's first borough-based jail is officially underway, Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced. Work on the Kew Gardens, Queens facility marks the first major move to build four smaller and "more humane" jails in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The $8.3 billion effort comes via the Borough-Based Jails Program, a controversial plan passed by the City Council in October 2019, aimed at closing the 10 jails now in operation on Rikers Island.

The new, approximately 105-foot-tall structure will include a 25,000-square-foot, two-level, multi-purpose community space, along with a 600-car public parking garage. The 866-bed facility will replace the current Queens Detention Complex, which is located adjacent to Queens Borough Hall and the Queens Criminal Courthouse.

The parking garage and community space will feature a partially planted green roof, solar panels, and on-site stormwater retention. This portion of the project is expected to qualify for LEED Gold certification for environmental sustainability.

The NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) is managing the overall Borough-Based Jails program citywide. The Queens jail is being created by a design-build team consisting of Hunter Roberts Construction Group and architecture firms Marvel and Urbahn Architects. Work on the project is expected to complete in early 2023.

Procurement and early site preparation activities are ongoing for the other three Borough-Based...

NYC issues RFQ for new municipal jail towers

2020-02-05T13:47:00-05:00

The New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) has issued a Request for Qualifications soliciting design-build teams that will create the city's $8 billion plan to create four new "Borough-Based Jails" tower complexes.

According to a press release, the project will bring into being four new jail facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. These facilities will be designed to house 3,000 people. The jail tower projects represent the city's attempt to reposition its carceral system as the Rikers Island complex begins to close down.

Previously on Archinect: AECOM to build Rikers Island replacement facilities across New York's boroughs. Aerial photo of Rikers Island in New York City, Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey.

According to the press release, DDC is asking firms to submit a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) in response to the RFQ that will be used to create a short-list of firms that will then be asked to respond to a Request for Proposals (RFQ)....

Michael Kimmelman on the future of jails in NYC

2019-12-19T19:29:00-05:00

Will New York’s new jails be places where visiting families feel welcome? Will the jails provide space for police officers and medical staff to train together? For detainees to confer with lawyers? For therapeutic assistance and recreation? Outside as well as inside, will they be scaled to their surroundings, will the city be open to other sites and will the buildings architecturally represent, as borough landmarks, our civic ideals and values?

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, provides an spirited overview of the ongoing developments in New York City regarding the planned decommissioning and relocation of the prison facilities located on Rikers Island. The large-scale infrastructure and architecture practice AECOM was recently selected to design four high-rise replacement facilities that are to be located one per borough (except on Staten Island).

Attempting to place architects at the center of the debate, Kimmelman writes, "If we’re going to keep building jails, can new architecture help heal what ails the penal system? Jails are works of architecture, after all."

Interrogating the impacts of NYC’s Rikers jail replacement plan

2019-12-12T14:06:00-05:00

The height of the new jail towers was later slashed from 45 storeys to a maximum of 29, but the damage had been done. The images of these brutish concrete silos symbolised a rack’em and stack’em approach, attracting criticism from both prison reform advocates and the communities in which these fortified slabs were to be planted.

Writing in The Guardian, critic Oliver Wainwright examines competing visions for the future of New York City’s prisons.

Earlier this year, AECOM was selected to envision a dispersed carceral archipelago for the city that would take the place of the sordid Rikers Island prison. The plan has faced strong opposition from groups like No New Jails NYC and others who seek to have the city move away from mass incarceration and toward alternative forms of justice administration.

"Renewable Rikers" plan takes shape

2019-06-13T18:37:00-04:00

The “Renewable Rikers Act,” crafted by Queens Councilmember Costa Constantinides, aims to create a green vision for the 400-acre correctional facility that would keep the island out of the hands of luxury developers, while lessening the burden on communities loaded with city infrastructure.

A trio of legislative efforts are underway in New York to transform the Rikers Island jail into a green energy powerhouse for the city.

Queens Council member Costa Constantinides told Curbed, “Closing Rikers Island, if we do this right, can not only end overpolicing and the atrocities that have gone on there, but we can look at what renewable opportunities we have and really get into the weeds and come up with a plan."

Jonathan Lippman, the former state chief judge who led a 2017 commission that recommended closing the jail, added, “It is also time to look ahead to how our city can repurpose this island, which has been a symbol and accelerator of misery for so many, and turn it to the use for public good."

AECOM to build Rikers Island replacement facilities across New York's boroughs

2019-05-31T09:12:00-04:00

A joint venture led by global architecture and infrastructure firm AECOM has been awarded a $107.4 million contract by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) for the development of four new correctional facilities set to replace the existing Rikers Island jail complex.

AECOM will lead the project as part of a joint venture with Philadelphia-based construction management firm Hill International.

The new correctional facilities will be located on sites scattered across the city, with Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx each set to receive a new jail.

In a press release announcing their selection, AECOM writes, "new, state-of-the-art, borough-based facilities will enable New York City to make considerable improvements for people in detention, their visiting families and NYC Department of Correction employees. Each new facility will integrate health, educational and re-entry programs, as well as community space."

The team selection follows the 2017 decisio...

Learning from Rikers Island: the future of carceral infrastructure in New York City

2017-12-08T13:36:00-05:00

Mayor de Blasio’s recent pledge to close the Rikers Island jail complex within ten years was met with celebration by many — and skepticism by others. After 85 years in the public imagination, it has become hard to believe that the East River behemoth could ever really be slain. But the reality of a post-Rikers future is coming into focus [...]. Rikers is toxic, and its era is done. A change is on the wind, it seems, and the island’s aura of inevitability is finally dispersing.

In their Urban Omnibus essay, "A Jail to End All Jails," authors Jarrod Shanahan and Jack Norton take a closer look at the history and a potential future of one of the nation's most notorious prisons and the greater jail infrastructure of a city where the average daily incarcerated population was at 9,400 in 2017.

"Following the recommendation of the Lippman Commission in calling for a system of local jails to replace the central complex, de Blasio has released a plan for Rikers’ closure and sought support from consultants and City Council members in siting new jails or expanding existing borough facilities to accommodate more prisoners. The logic goes that jails in the boroughs will be closer to courts, helping cases move through the system more efficiently, and closer to the support of family and social services, helping prisoners stay out of the system once released."

Rikers Island proposed for Laguardia Airport expansion

2017-04-05T18:46:00-04:00

The Island is uniquely positioned to accommodate an expanded LaGuardia Airport that would reduce delays and could serve as many as 12 million more passengers annually.

Last week, New York Mayor Bill De Blasio announced that the city would close Rikers Island jail complex. The news followed a report by the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform which recommended such action. The report also included a number of innovative ideas for a post-jail Rikers, including expanding LaGuardia Airport onto the island and adding a new runway and more terminal space.

Putting one of America's most notorious prisons on the map

2016-04-13T12:34:00-04:00

Rikers Island looms large in New York’s imagination. It is home to a notorious complex of prisons, one whose excesses are still being discovered by the media and the courts. Many would like to see the Rikers Island closed forever, or barring that, to at least change the name to something that does not honor a slaveowner. One group of designers has a different goal for Rikers Island—one that is within reach and, in fact, already at hand.

"The problem: On the most prominent map of New York City, Rikers Island is a nonentity. The island simply isn’t labeled on Metropolitan Transportation Authority maps inside the New York subway. The solution: Label it. On every map."

For more on the #SeeRikers campaign – or to create your own stickers with their template – visit their site.

And check out these links for related content:

Rikers Island is an environmental (and human) catastrophe

2016-03-22T18:23:00-04:00

Rikers is built on a landfill. The ground underneath the facilities is unstable and the decomposing garbage emits poisonous methane gas. In addition to extreme heat and poor air quality, flooding and crumbling infrastructure pose a serious threat, especially when superstorms like Hurricane Sandy strike. As the violence and human rights violations worsen, so do the environmental circumstances surrounding Rikers.

The article details flood-risk, extreme heat, a lack of air circulation and other air quality issues among other problems plaguing the prison.

For related content, check out some of these links:

Architecture of correction: Rikers Island

2015-07-08T18:00:00-04:00

As long as the City of New York has owned Rikers Island, since the 1880s, it has been a place for the unwanted. For a time, pigs were raised for slaughter there. [...] was converted to a partial landfill, full of horse manure and garbage. The odor repelled its neighbors in the boroughs, and the refuse attracted a sizable rat population, which the city tried to contain by releasing wild dogs. [...] It took poison gas to kill off the rodents. Next the city moved humans to Rikers.