Different neighbours. Some architects would refuse to design a penitentiary centre while others believe that it is part of their professional remit. The partners of LAN (Umberto Napolitano and Benoît Jallon) are among the latter. Last March, they completed a day parole district and the headquarters of the Hauts-de-Seine prison probation and rehabilitation services (SPIP) in Nanterre over 4350 sq.m.
“The project strives to rebuild a form of urban life and offers the definition of a relationship between architecture and the city through various forms: A façade instead of a wall, a more ‘flexible’ transition space between the indoors and the outdoors, volumes which play a linking role between the different scales”, stress the architects.