West Kimberley Regional Prison

architecture

FOLLOW

TAG Architects and iredale pedersen hook architects
13.06.13

Waiting for the flight to Broome at Perth Airport I’m acutely aware that fluoro-shirted, steel toe-capped boot wearing FIFO workers outnumber polo-shirted photographers by a factor of about 1000 to 1. I grew up in Perth, I’ve made this trip a couple of times but I’m a smart-casual outsider to the mining boom. Instead I’m visiting the Western Kimberley Regional Prison. For company I’ve alternated with iph’s Finn Pedersen and Adrian Iredale (shorts and t-shirts, fetchingly accessorised with Akubra and Rip Curl hats respectively) and TAG Architects Jurg Hunziker (who elects to go native with a high-vis safety shirt – he vouches for its cooling properties). I visited the prison first in the hot, hot, hot season to photograph it before it opened and later in the wet, wet, wet season to document its first occupation by indigenous prisoners.
 
In the rented Holden Commodore barrelling mostly east en route to Derby we slow for lumbering Brahmin cattle crossing and the crocodile infested Fitzroy River. Talk in the car turns to the Willare Bridge Roadhouse and the quality of its corned-beef sandwiches and cryo-vac beef*. I silently wonder if there’s a direct link between the fifty-metre long road trains we pass and the voluptuous beef display in the Roadhouse. The corned-beef sandwiches are good, the Roadhouse reminds me of the film ‘Wolf Creek’.
 
We pass the Boab Prison Tree about 7km from town. Just out of sight behind the Prison Tree is the West Kimberly Regional Prison. Some irony, but apart from featuring Boab trees and accommodating indigenous prisoners they’ve nothing in common. The West Kimberly Regional Prison (WKRP) does away with the existing paradigm of incarceration for aboriginal prisoners, tackling the many issues with visionary resolve, a sensitive and deft architecture and a deep understanding of the cultural and physical landscape of the northwest.
 
One of the big ideas in the project is that prisoners are allowed to have access to their families and Elders, their Lore and Culture, and that they can develop skills that will enable them to gain employment upon their release. On my second visit I saw guitar groups, sewing classes, computer laboratories, commercial cooking classes and football training. 
 
Forty-four small-scale buildings are scattered through a bushland setting. The overall impression is one of a neatly-planned township with an overt sensitivity to the Kimberley landscape. Roof-forms fold and undulate across the site. Verandahs, breezeways and pavilions determine outdoor activity space and provide deep shading to all buildings. With mean daytime temperatures of 40° C and abject humidity I can attest to the pre-wet season climate as cruel. Cyclones frequent the region; inundating the landscape and testing structures.
 
Wallabies, goannas and the most amazing birdlife live in and around the community. The eighty-odd Boab trees that have been relocated within the interior landscape frame views, provide shade and give poignant meaning.
 
As a photographer it’s been a great privilege to accompany the architects (TAG and iredale pedersen hook in association) on these journeys, to meet the corrections officers and be overwhelmed by their commitment and understanding of the prisoners, and to meet many of the prisoners themselves and see the hope that prisoners stand to leave prison with much more than when they entered.
 
This is an exemplary and quietly beautiful project that does a lot of good.
 
*The photographer and the architects carried cryo-vac beef back to Perth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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