Nordic model to inform redesign of California's San Quentin prison

Danish architecture studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen and American studio DLR Group have been selected to redesign California's San Quentin State Prison into a rehabilitation centre that will utilise influences from the Scandinavian incarceration system.

Following a 2023 announcement from California Governor Gavin Newsom that the maximum-security prison will be converted into a "one-of-a-kind facility" renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, the studios have released designs of the future centre.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen (SHL) said that it will utilise principles derived from those used by Scandinavian countries for the architecture, design and management of their carceral facilities including enhanced daylighting and access to education and landscaping.

It has worked on similar projects such as the New Correctional Facility Nuuk, using a system introduced in the 1990s that "prioritises rehabilitation through education", according to the studio.

"Bringing our expertise with the Nordic model of rehabilitation and education, we are combining the best of both worlds," said SHL senior project manager Jette Birkeskov Mogensen. "Having DLR Group and SHL working from day one as an integrated design team has ensured an unprecedented level of speed and quality in design informing clients."

The announcement is part of the overall California Model initiative by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), a series of reforms that seek to improve living and working conditions for those incarcerated, prison workers and visitors.

The California Model is partially informed by an "independent report" submitted to the Governor in early 2024 that details recommendations for expanding rehabilitation efforts including improving housing for inmates and correctional staff, as well as improving officer training.

"Dignity and respect"

"[San Quentin] carries a well-earned reputation central to US history and culture based in large part on its notorious punitive and degrading environment," project design lead Kasper Heiberg Frandsen told Dezeen.

"The corresponding design solution offers meandering routes through a non-rigid and natural campus setting, rich in its variation and down-scaled in its massing."

"The lay-out supports abundant modes of learning – from focused studies, group collaboration to class teaching. Delivered through a tailor-made architectural language spoken with a subtle and no-nonsensical precision, telling a tale of human dignity and respect."

Renders of the project show facades clad in an assortment of bevelled tiles. Landspacing, walking paths and seating surround its entrance.

The facility will encompass "a campus-like educational facility" with classrooms, a library, a technology and media centre, a store, and cafe.

According to the architect of record, DLR Group, demolition of a former warehouse and the "forbidding" San Quentin South Wall has already begun to "further reinforce the open, campus-style environment."

The rehabilitation centre is expected to open in 2026.

San Quentin State Prison is California's oldest prison and once contained the state's only death row until Newsom's moratorium on the policy in 2019. Starting in 2024, death row inmates are now being relocated.

CookFox Architects recently released its designs of a former's women prison that is set to become affordable housing, while principals of DLR Group Lori Coppenrath and Marayca Lopez discussed how design can help reduce mass incarceration.

The images are by Aesthetica.

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