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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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — The New York Times
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... View full entry
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. — Urbanize New York
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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?
— The New York Times
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... View full entry
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. — The Guardian
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... View full entry
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. — Curbed NY
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — Urban Omnibus
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... View full entry
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. — 6sqft
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... View full entry
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.
— CityLab
"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... View full entry
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. — Grist
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:How one California prison is betting on architecture to decrease recidivism ratesArchitecture of... View full entry
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. — nymag.com
Related:The NYT on prison architecture and ethicsFrom a "clean version of hell" to blabaerskogHow Prison Architecture Can Transform Inmates' LivesShould Architects Design for Solitary Confinement? View full entry
