An Architecture of Hope: reimagining the prison, restoring a house, rebuilding myself

by Yvonne Jewkes

Should architecture be used for punishment? How might the spaces we inhabit nurture or damage us? How can we begin to start over after the worst has happened?

Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes grapples with these questions every day as the world’s leading expert on rehabilitative prison design; she also faces them in her personal life when her partner of 25 years leaves her in the middle of a nightmare renovation project and then lockdown sees her trapped there.

Used to fighting the punitive prison system to create spaces that encourage reflection, healing, even hope for those incarcerated, she must learn to be similarly compassionate to herself, as she considers what might help someone at the lowest point in their life to rebuild.

There are 11.5 million prisoners worldwide, and most of them will eventually be released back into society. Yvonne ‘Who would you rather have living next door to you? Or sitting on the train next to your daughter? Someone who has been treated with decency in an environment that has helped to heal them and instilled hope for their future? Or someone who has effectively been caged and dehumanised for years?’ Challenging our expectations of what prisons are for, she takes us along their corridors, into cells, communal spaces, visitors’ areas, and staffrooms, to the architects’ studios where they are designed, and even into her own home, to show us the importance of an architecture of hope in the face of despair.

315 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 26, 2024

Reviews

[Lisa Bowman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yvonne Jewkes's memoir is a glorious woven recollection of the life challenges that have pushed her to the brink of hopelessness and her quest for professional excellence that has kept her moving forward. Her writing is light as the embroidery on a Georgian gown but sturdy as a whalebone corset.
The leading expert in rehabilitative prison design and consultant on many prison projects around the world, Yvonne agrees to fund her partner's ambitious plan of to renovate their elegant but neglected Cheltenham townhouse. Like drawing the Lovers card and then the Tower in a tarot reading, their plan (and house) begin to crumble. Yvonne ends up living alone in the one liveable room contemplating life, hope and home.
The book is written with deftness and depth. It's a quick read packes with humour, dramatic tension, insight and philosophy. She helps the reader consider the nature of prisons, not only the bones of them, but the bones within them. Jewkes presents the possiblities of prison and public space design as agents of hope and healing and makes a good case for us all to take responsiblity for better planning decisions.
There is a strong philosophical thread throughout the book on the meaning of home and freedom. Is home where we buy, where we hang our hat or can we find a home where we are locked in? In the end, Jewkes finds a universal homely metaphor in the way the sun catches through a perfectly flawed window that projects itself on the perfectly flawed wall. Home is as ephemeral as hope.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very competently written and thoroughly engaging work. There are three seperate themes: prison design and conflict re punishment and the prison system, the authors personal life circumstances, architecturally particularly, and relationships, and finally what is needed on a practical level for a prison to successfully rehabilitate damaged souls. It is written in an easy style - no academic stodge and only a little lecturing - easy to read, and extremely thought provoking. We are told a little what to think, mainly by some repititious sections but I read those more as a passionate plea to not repeat the ongoing practices and thinking of the past than an irritation. The word commonsense leaps to mind. The solutions suggested very similar to things we want not only in our children's schools but also our own homes. Something I particularly liked was the inclusion of inmate and prison staff relationships, through the lens of the prison environment being something they share on more levels than just the usual conflicting two of imprisoned and imprisoner. It is a book that leaves you with hope but also with sadness, and the gift of food for thought that lingers. Prisons are not only not just four walls. Some other walls to failure being invisible. Those walls that are visible can also be manipulated to evoke either warmth and harmony, or bleakness and despair. At root level the prison system decision to choose the latter is a choice to fail in accomplishing its own mission. I removed one star only because I can't remove only half, and that only because of a few references to a particular popular supplier of furniture that personally I have been let down by.