Youth Detention Centre Rassnitz

An outer wall surrounds this nearly square Juvenile Detention Centre, which is located on the outskirts of town. The only building outside of the wall is a house for day release prisoners. The youth prison for the state of Saxony-Anhalt can hold up to 400 prisoners in its two-storey, clinker brick-clad facilities.

With four in-house prisoner groups apiece, each of the five, U-shaped incarceration buildings circles a small recreation yard. This is in turn also enclosed within a large, square courtyard as per the space-within-a-space method, which is seen as very important with regard to the urban planning-related aspects of a correctional facility as a microcosm. Besides infrastructure provision, it also offers a high quality of stay with sports and rambling lawns, borders, groups of trees and a pond. The hard edge of the urban buildings surrounding the structure is dissolved by the covered, open access to the main road, linking the cubic structure with the organic shapes in the landscape.

A linear structure connects to the building from the west. Divided into two parallel, longitudinal strips, it is divided into sections by single-storey connecting tracts in between. It is here that the central functional units are located, including prison transports and clothing check, kitchen, visitor rooms, general management and dining-hall overlooking the water. South of this building is another structure for remand prisoners, which is also connected to the courtyard.

Workshops cover the northwest of the courtyard; to the north is a sports hall complete with sports field, the training and education wings and medical service for the building complex.