Architecture,atmospheres,and the pains of unattainable affordances: Tracing prisoners’ lived experience in a ‘new-generation’ prison in Switzerland

Abstract

Despite long-standing emphasis on the importance of prison infrastructure, the specific impact of architecture and design on the lived experience of incarcerated persons remains under-researched. This article explores how people living in a newly built prison in Switzerland perceive and experience this place, which was designed according to the principle of ‘normalisation’. Drawing on qualitative data generated through ethnographic methods and using ‘atmosphere’ and ‘affordance’ as key concepts, this article aims to map the prison's sensory topography and to illuminate experiential spaces that emerge from a dynamic interplay between the design features, institutional control and individual perception. By introducing the concept of the ‘pains of unattainable affordances’, this article demonstrates that in the ‘normalised’ context of a new-generation prison, incarcerated persons may experience novel ‘pains of imprisonment’, as the space–time regime that prison management imposes often collides with the architects’ intentions and restricts access to the prison environment's ‘offerings’. This article contributes to the emerging field of studies that highlight the spatial, embodied and sensory experience of imprisonment and raises critical questions regarding ongoing reflections surrounding the ‘principle of normalisation’ that has become a key concept in contemporary prison philosophy.