HMP & YOI Stirling

HMP & YOI Stirling is a ground breaking new 100 person custodial facility for Women in Custody in Scotland and replaces the previous HMP Cornton Vale prison on the existing site between Cornton and Bridge of Allan, to the north of the city of Stirling in central Scotland. The design is heavily focused on mental wellbeing and a trauma informed approach to design, creating a therapeutic environment with landscape and nature at it’s core.

The design team worked closely with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) in the early conceptual design stage of the project, developing a unique, bespoke brief based on principles of therapeutic design. The facility incorporates 7 predominantly single storey buildings including a Front of House, Central Hub, Retreat, Animal Care and 3 House buildings, subdivided to provide small, sensitively arranged communities, with all bedrooms focused on providing uninterrupted views of the landscape beyond the site. All of these buildings are designed around a well considered landscaped environment, taking advantage of key views to the wider historic environment of the area.

A step change from previously designed prison environments in Scotland, the overarching concept was to embed the masterplan within the landscape and the site’s richly historic and scenic surroundings. This link forms a continuous theme throughout the establishment, with a series of design features focusing on transparency, nature and light, linking a variety of landscaped courtyards and gardens, each with it’s own individual character designed in response to it’s surrounding adjacencies.