- Part 1 Architectural Assistant Experience in London Office
- Architectural Asssitant Experience in Marseille Office
Celia-Doina Oprea
Post-Carceral Thresholds: Towards an Architecture of Just Transitions
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Skills & Experience
Project description
Situated on the edge of Lough Foyle beside Magilligan Prison, this project proposes a halfway home on the site of a former gun battery. The proposal engages with the spatial, political, and ecological conditions of the landscape, examining architecture’s capacity to mediate between histories of control and spaces of care.
The project responds to the often unsupported moment of release from prison, a transition intensified by the remoteness of the site and the lack of immediate access to accommodation, communication, and support services. In response, the proposal combines temporary housing, support facilities, and creative studio spaces within a shared architectural framework for rehabilitation and reintegration.
Positioned between the prison, the coastline, and the surrounding community, the project reframes a site historically associated with surveillance and defence as a place of transition, care, and new beginnings. Through domestic space, collective activity, and making, the architecture supports the gradual reoccupation of everyday life.
Network of Memory
The project proposes architectural interventions that engage an invisible network of histories embedded within the site’s complex political and historical context, shaped by the protests, military infrastructure, and the presence of Magilligan Prison, creating spaces that bring these latent narratives into active dialogue.
An Architecture of Memory
In the first semester, the project proposes a series of architectural interventions centred on memory, observation, and mediation. Positioned along the coastline, these structures frame views toward specific sites within these historical and political networks, situated within a landscape that contains existing Second World War gun battery structures, encouraging moments of pause, reflection, and engagement with the layered narratives embedded within the site.
Semester 1 Proposal Perspectives
An Architecture of Care
The second semester responds to the contemporary condition of the site and its proximity to Magilligan Prison. Addressing the often abrupt transition from incarceration to reintegration, the project proposes a coastal halfway house that provides short- and medium-term accommodation, social support services, and creative studio spaces. Through this programme, the architecture seeks to support individuals leaving incarceration by offering spaces for pause, reconnection, and creative practice.
Housing Block Sectional Model
Section model showing radial glulam structure, external finishes and relation to existing strcuture.
Post-Carceral Centre of Transition Brief
Celia-Doina Oprea
Post-Carceral Thresholds: Towards an Architecture of Just Transitions
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