Microapartments Designed by Italian Prisoners

You know how jail cells feature a combination toilet/sink? Years ago I joked that if Milan had a prison, their toilets would look like this:

Silly joke aside, it turns out there was an unusual project in Italy to have prison inmates design microapartments.

To be clear, the convicts of the maximum security Spoleto Prison in central Italy were not given computers and copies of AutoCAD; rather, “We asked them to be our consultants, to design a cell together,” writes Cibic Workshop, the Milan-based design research center that undertook the project. “[To design something] more livable, compact and functional, that can respond to new needs.” And the prisoners at Spoleto knew a thing or two about furniture; the prison features a woodshop where convicts create furniture provided to other Italian prisons.

The resultant project, called “Freedom Room,” was presented at the Salone in 2013 and was intended to stoke debate about what a low-cost “essential living” unit should look like, whether applied to a hotel, hostel, dorm, building full of microapartments, or yes, a prison.

But while many press outlets covered the event at the time, the documentation was poor and underwhelming. For example, no one took the trouble to actually explain what we’re looking at. All we see is a bunch of pictures of a space, with no context, no hint of what the prisoners/designers were thinking when they created one area or another.

We dug through Cibic’s documentation to find some kind of key or diagram. All we could find was a few images with Italian-language call-outs on them. We ran the copy through a translator in an effort to further explain the project, which currently appears to be deader than a doornail (the documentation stopped with the exhibition in April of 2013). Below we list our best guess at the translated descriptions:

1. Doorway

The opening to the outside, being enlarged at the top, allows you to enjoy a greater amount of natural light

2. Table/Worksurface

A place to study, read, cook, work

3. Beds

Most of life in a cell takes place on the bed. Here it is also a sofa and a decent place to concentrate

4. Drawers

Storage for clothes and linens

5. Wardrobe

With sliding doors to contain not only their clothes but of all the selection of objects that accompany life in prison

6. Shower

Today most prisons do not have a shower in the cells, which yields problems with a person’s dignity and privacy

7. Sink

To be used for washing, laundry and cooking. There would also be a place to dry objects or clothing.

8. Toilet

9. Cabinets

To store small items and whatever will be used on the worksurface below

10. Shelves

For books or other objects, with the ability to close the shelves with sliding panels

At any rate, it’s nicer than any dorm room I’ve ever lived in.