The barbed wire and fortress-like fences of TV prison dramas are nowhere to be found here. Designed to support rehabilitation, this real-life detention centre has some of the features one would expect in exemplary office spaces — acoustic treatments, daylight views and equitable accessibility among them.

Windsor’s South West Detention Centre, which was expected, as of July, to begin admitting inmates soon, meets the provincial government’s maximum-security requirements with a modernized approach to physical barriers.

“The fencing is there, but it’s around the back and in an area where it’s not obvious, and visually it’s somewhat concealed by parts of the building,” says Jonathan Hughes, vice president, public buildings, NORR Ottawa.

The centre was the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ response to a shortage of detention space in the region that coincided with the need to replace Chatham and Windsor’s aging jails. Valued at $247 million over its expected lifespan, the project was delivered through a public-private partnership, or P3, as it’s known in industry parlance.

Forum Social Infrastructure led the consortium selected to design, build, finance and maintain the facility for 30 years. Between its Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver offices, NORR Limited handled architecture, interior design and project management as well as structural, mechanical and electrical. The team worked alongside builder Bondfield Construction to complete the facility on a fast-tracked schedule of approximately two years.

As Hughes explains, NORR has 35 years of experience in Canada’s corrections industry, including the redevelopment of Kingston Penitentiary. But, as with any project, the South West Detention Centre came with unique requirements. The federal facilities his firm has worked on are tailored to prisoner type, while the provincial facility intakes inmates based on geography.

Individuals are detained at the centre anywhere from immediately following their arrest — meaning they may later be found to be innocent — all the way through to serving sentences, on conviction, of up to two years less a day.

Living units allow correctional officers to triage inmates by security needs, Hughes says. The flexible design means living units can be operated with direct or indirect supervision.

The 200,000-square-foot centre houses 315 beds divided into seven 32-bed living units and one 16-bed mental health living unit.

Correctional officers are stationed at a desk within the living units, in a direct supervision model that supports the rehabilitation process. The Windsor facility is the second detention centre in the province to apply this model.

“The opening of the South West Detention Centre is an important milestone in the modernization of the correctional system in Ontario,” Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Yasir Naqvi said in a news release. “By increasing programming and mental health supports for inmates, and introducing a direct supervision model, we are making the system safer for correctional officers and inmates.”

Male inmates are housed in two-storey living units, with eight cells each on the upper and lower levels, with fixed furniture and stainless steel toilet and sink fixtures. Female inmates are housed in a one-storey living unit that has a larger central living area with flexible furniture and ceramic toilet and sink fixtures, providing a more “normative” environment for a population that tends to be less aggressive, says Hughes.

The pre-manufactured, precast concrete cells are double-bunked — stacked for men and unstacked for women. Finishes are durable, made from plastic or stainless steel able to withstand potential abuse, with rounded edges.

Access to daylight was achieved through clerestory glazing and skylights.

“You want to be able to know the environment that’s passing along outside, to understand when it’s day and night, as well as get some natural light in to make the space less stressful,” Hughes says. “But you don’t want visual contact through an outside window to someone else’s outside window, for security reasons, so there are screens outside, as well as within the facility, that inhibit that sort of view.”

Acoustic perforated security panels on the ceiling, along with pneumatic systems preventing doors from slamming shut, help to mitigate the loud echoes caused by heavy-duty furniture and building materials.

The government client also required the facility to meet the latest Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) standards, which challenged NORR to incorporate at least one barrier-free cell in each of the living units as well as wider corridors and door widths that provide adequate turnaround space for motorized assistive devices.

Intuitive wayfinding follows the principles of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), avoiding curved corridors and dead-ends to keep inmates within sight and prevent them from wandering into off-limits areas, Hughes says.

Located at the back of the building, living units meet all of their population’s needs, including dining, laundry, recreation and counseling.

A health centre within the facility minimizes the frequency with which inmates are transferred to a regional hospital. Doctors and nurses visit the site to perform general procedures.

Sally ports and staff entrances are tucked along the sides of the building. Inmates are admitted and discharged on the extreme left and right of the building — one side for males and the other for females.

Up near the front of the building, the mechanical penthouse is planned with enough space to allow for the doubling of boilers, chillers and the like, which would in turn enable the doubling of the jail population through a rear addition. Energy-efficient mechanical-electrical systems are expected to be a major contributor to the centre’s targeted LEED NC Silver certification.

As well as pursuing a LEED standard, the government client set out as a core objective that the institution be integrated into, and even enhance, the surrounding community.

Canopy and glazing clearly identify the public front entrance, which opens into the administrative section of the building. A gym and multi-purpose room near the front entrance are available to the community. The public is also welcomed to visit the adjacent park and accessible trails, competition-level cricket pitch and FIFA-standard soccer field.

“If I look at the site, it doesn’t scream of some of the other provincial facilities that you see around Ontario,” says Hughes. “You have a park, you have the visitors’ parking directly adjacent to the front entrance, the front entrance is open, and the lobby is more of a public facility that is spacious and full of natural light.”

Michelle Ervin is the editor of Canadian Facility Management & Design.

Image courtesy of NORR Limited.