A big brick U for an open prison
With its flush-faced jointing pattern and completely planar masonry in sanguine colours extending from light, sandy hues to burley browns, structurated by repetitious but by no means monotonous, narrow, high, steel-framed window elements, it is more remindful of a classic brick structure by Heinz Bienefeld than the frugality of a prison. Thanks to its materiality, its coal-fired/water-struck bricks and colouration, the structure picks up on aspects of its rural environment. On the one hand, the building exhibits sufficient simplicity to do justice to its task as a correctional facility, but on the other, through its structural disposition, the layout of its façades, its deployment of materials and its sensitive attention to detail, it radiates quietude and warmth.
Its transformation of conventional “bars“ into versatile, room-high revolving steel shelves sitting in the windows‘ extra-deep reveals attests to an adept, perceptive approach.
The new accommodations building at the open prison in Berlin-Zehlendorf, designed by MGF Architekten, Stuttgart, received a recognition prize at the 2012 German Brick Awards.
