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The San Diego County Women’s Detention Facility (SDCWDF) has received the 2013 Justice Facilities Review (JFR) award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for its use of best practices in planning and design of the facility as well as exerting a positive influence upon its occupants.

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Designed by HMC Architects along with KMD Architects and developed by the design-build team of Balfour Beatty Construction, the San Diego County Women’s Detention Facility presents an innovative approach to the care and custody of women that has the potential to establish a national adult incarceration model based on normative operations and facility design.

Set on a community college like 45-acre campus, the SDCWDF features 1,216 beds. It is designed to facilitate a program intensive-management culture intended to proactively reduce recidivism.

Focusing on the transformative philosophy, the facility has been designed to explore principles of choice, change and accountability. The facility has been created to support rehabilitative opportunities and the safety and security of staff and inmates.

Taking care of the psychological and physiological needs of women inmates, the facility has been designed with multi-custody living environments, which are clustered around exterior courtyards that integrally connect the interior to the exterior spaces to create intimate or group interaction.

The program buildings are located in the heart of the campus core. Apart from that it also features carefully designed landscapes throughout. The project is targeting LEED Gold certification.

The project was honored at the AIA’s Academy of Architecture for Justice (AAJ) fall conference in Portland, Oregon.