This is a critical time in our quest for justice-system reform.
Let’s create the future, together.
Justice and other community-based facilities serve our most vulnerable populations, and the built environment has a profound impact on their health, wellbeing, and perception of society. We can help your organization determine your facility vision and requirements and translate those goals into a design that will assure an effective, rehabilitative facility.
Services provided for the following building types:
Detention, corrections, courts, probation, behavioral health, social services, public health, public safety, and others.
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Design Consulting
All facets of a facility’s design must be safe and secure, ensure efficient operations and building performance, and at the same time be evidence-based, trauma-informed, gender-responsive, and address the unique needs of clients and staff.
I can help your team design a facility that meets all these criteria.
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Evaluation & Research
Curious about how your facility is performing? Interested in evidence-based design strategies for your project.
Post-occupancy evaluations, data analysis, Evidence-based design resources, and other research services available.
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Education
Panels, Lunch and Learns, Guest Lectures, Webinars, and Workshops
I would love to educate your team on justice issues past, present, and future.
Podcast Alert!
From the Inside: Architecture’s Impact on Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal Justice Reform: It’s a huge, multifaceted movement to fix our broken system. But there is one important topic missing from the mainstream conversation: Architecture. Until now.
Some of My Work
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In the early 2000’s, the Judicial Council of California consolidated oversight and responsibility for court facilities from the counties to the state. Erin acted as one principal of the working group; consulting to with 27 of the 58 counties to assess their operational and facility deficiencies and identify potential renovation or replacement projects with a focus on enhancing access to justice, space adequacy, and safety for all building users. This effort will create the foundation for the next decade of capital courts projects across the state. (Erin led seven master plans and “second-chaired” two additional master plans as part of this effort.)
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Erin was a programming consultant developing criteria documents for design-build solicitation of this large-scale, 3,885-bed replacement facility for Men’s Central Jail. Programming for this project places particular emphasis on mental health and substance abuse treatment, utilizing innovative solutions for the delivery of treatment and support services. Beds in this facility are planned for acute medical and mental health treatment, substance use treatment, high and moderate observation, medical outpatient treatment, and general population.
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Erin is the correctional health care lead and a senior planner assessing and updating the operational model for and subsequent facility needs of the Elmwood Correctional Facility. Erin’s primary role in this planning effort involves working with Custody Health Services to evaluate and develop recommendations for the role of Elmwood’s medical and behavioral health care operations with the opening of a new Main Jail (South), at the Main Jail Complex in downtown San Jose, California.
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The primary mission of this facility is the delivery of high-quality mental health and re-entry services in a modern, rehabilitative environment. A small site and complex circulation demands required that the programming team prioritize zoning the facility to optimize adjacencies in order to simplify staff, inmate (including incompatible populations), and vehicular movement in and around the facility. Beds for this facility include high security general population housing with extensive programming and support functions; a specialized unit for inmates with mild to moderate mental health diagnoses who are stable yet require ongoing treatment and programming to support recovery; and an intensive services unit for individuals with persistent mental illness who have been generally stabilized yet require a higher level of care.
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This courthouse modernization project was part of Los Angeles County’s broad goal to improve justice services to those afflicted with medical and mental health issues in the criminal justice system. Erin was on the planning team developing the functional and design requirements for the new (adaptive-reuse) facility. Consistent with LA County’s goals, the team incorporated the service needs of this population into all aspects of the building design.
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This project required evaluation of 28 existing DSS buildings, assessment of the feasibility of consolidation, and architectural programming for a new facility.
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Erin was on a team challenged with fitting this forensic MHRC within an underutilized and outdated juvenile detention center. The existing county PRRC is on-site and also requires retrofitted space, or a relocation suitable to its client population. Erin led the feasibility effort for both functions within the existing facility. Beds for the MHRC include male and female high-security, incompetent to stand trial, and other forensic populations which may or may not require sheriff department observation.
Publications
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Through the use of a case study analysis, this course reviews the diagnostic POE process, with particular emphasis on the tools and techniques used in the data collection and analysis process. In addition, a review of the evaluators’ suggestions for items to be addressed, along with their potential solutions, is presented.
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This Courthouse POE Toolkit is designed to offer buildings evaluations of a broad range of scopes and depths of analysis. It consists of guidance and forms for planning the POE, five Information-gathering instruments, on-site fieldwork recommendations, suggestions on data analysis methods and how to present the report.
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Contributing author to Building Performance Evaluation: From Delivery Processes to Life Cycle Phases by Wolgang Preiser, Andrea Hardy, and Ulrich Schramm (Eds.)
The aim of this book is to present a retrospective of Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) as it evolved from Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) over the past 25 years. On one hand, this is done by updating original authors' chapter content of Building Evaluation, the first edition published in 1989. That, in turn, is augmented by an orientation toward current and future practice on the other, including new authors who are engaged in ongoing, cutting edge projects.
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During the latter half of the twentieth century there was a substantial increase in attention to the effect of the built environment on human health, which, in the 21st century, has accelerated with the popularity of biophilic design. Application of this research to architecture and interior design is becoming more prevalent and is extending to institutions such as schools and hospitals.