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• Prison Architect Layout Tips

A getting started guide to prisoner housing options. What do cells and dorms each offer, and what is best for you to use in your prison. Based on many hours of gameplay deadicated to the persuit of housing options.

Single Cells

• Prisoners privacy need is met, and it seems that most of my single cell guys have it fully green most of the time, keeping them a bit calmer and they very, very seldom attack guards or workmen entering their cells during lock-up.
• I've yet to have an escape tunnel get very far before being detected in a single cell, I'm guessing the game mechanics take into account that one guy digs slower than six.
• You get to see the occupants cell quality entitlement, meaning you can ensure prisoners are assigned the correct levels and can the add or remove improvement objects as needed. I've yet to see any evidence that a prisoner having the correct level makes them any more or less well behaved, the only thing it seems to have an effect on is not allowing prisoners to have higher than they are entitled to.... and my OCD about this
• Of course, they take up much, much more room.

Escape from reality but not from your custom-made jail! Prison Architect: Mobile challenges you to build and manage a maximum security prison, from laying out cell blocks and inmate facilities, to managing staff pay and prisoner morale. From layout to execution (literally, in some cases), you are the architect, the warden, and the enforcer. Prison designs will include basic necessities like. Some say that the horse-shoe layout of the prison on the island of Santo Stefano, off the coast of Lazio and Campania in the Tyrrhenian Sea, was designed according to the theories to give high ranking prisoners a good view. Amazing Architecture Architecture Design Social Justice Prison Planners Architects No Response Buildings Designers. To confine, secure, rehabilitate or punish: the prison has several, sometimes contradictory aims, but however humane its approach, penal architecture is essentially cruel You have read 1 of 1 free-access articles allowed for 30 - days. Prison Architect Calculator. As you could probably guess this is a website to calculate your kitchens, canteens, laundry etc. The website itself is made by me, the calculations were done by GiantB based on his google sheet and the power calculations were done by JaffaCakes6 based on his power guide. Prison Architect: Mobile challenges you to build and manage a maximum security prison, from laying out cell blocks and inmate facilities, to managing staff pay and prisoner morale. From layout to execution (literally, in some cases), you are the architect, the warden, and the enforcer.

Dorms - (Small)

Prison Architect Layout

• Privacy needs for those who have them are always dropped low, this really makes your prisoners pi**ed off. They often attack guards or workmen entering the dorms, even when all other needs are met, but this one seems to really get to the guys who have this need.
• They seem to dig tunnels much, much faster. I've had 10 escapes so far on my current prison by day 30. Six of these were from a 6 man dorm. (never you mind the other four.... I may or may not have left a gate unlocked for workmen and forgotten to lock it back up, and thre guys may or may not have just walked out unquestioned) Even the tunnels I've found coming out of dorms are much longer than any I've found from single cells.
• When they do dig their way out, you lose the full dorm of prisoners, not just one from a single cell..... I other words, you need to be on high alert for tunnels. I try to remember to do a full toilet search every 2-3 game days in 4-6 man dorm wings. This is doing a good job of keeping would-be ecapists under control. mega-dorms will likely need daily searches, and I don't know as yet if you would lose all cell occupants - in my case 56 - I'm going to allow them the chance to dig out at a later time and see if they all make a run for it together
• Prisoners fight in their cells. Then the guards run in to sort it out and they end up being attacked. If you are running a punishment-heavy prison with lots of angry prisoners, this often gets out of control FAST. The prisoners who were not fighting can take the change to leg it out the jail door and then riot in the main body of the jail, while the guard is being beaten up by the prisoners who were fighting. You NEED to make sure you have guard patrols in dorm wings to stop this happening.
• I have tried to observe various security levels and reputaions to see if they have an effect on negative in-dorm behaviour. It seems they do. When having a mixed security dorm wing, the dorms that contained 1 or 2 high security prisoners were always resulting in fights, but the med security only dorms had this happen much less - but they do still fight. Those with negative reps also seem to cause dorm problems much more often. Some prisoners just are not suited to dorm life and will cause no end of trouble for you to combat.
• If you haven't gotten and C.I's yet... prepare for all your snitches and ex-law enforcement to snuff it pretty sharpish. Not even their cells are safe for them. You need to find these guys fast when using dorms. Go put a bunch of guys in solitary and get some C.I's .... lots of C.I's; you'll need them if you want to avoid too many D.I.C's.
• The huge bonus being you can cram so many more prisoners into such a small space to generate that revenue. If you're willing to add the extra security to your prison to combat the dorm problems then they are far superior IMO. You just have to be well aware of the goings-on of your prisoners. Perhaps try to have low-med security in dorms, with high-super in cells.

Dorms - (Large)

It's worth a note that I've only fully played with four and six capacity dorms so far, I've just built two 56 capacity ones that are slowly filling up, will update if I find any effects of these mega-dorms.

• The first and most annoying thing I've found with these, when they are first built they, of course, have no occupants (giving you the extra 3x quailty rating of 12 squares per prisoner), and the chairs/showers/TVs ect all meet the quota for 1x object per X prisoners. This means you get all the improvement items and your mega-dorm will have a very high cell quality rating, that will drop down when it gets some prisoners living in it.... but you can't assign any prisoners too it because all avalible cells are too high a quality for new receptions. The only way I've found to combat this is to turn off the cell quality assignment settings until the dorms are full and drop back down to a lower rating. This however messes up the rest of your prison as prisoners get assigned the wrong cells by the guards, that then have to be reassigned after you've filled your mega-dorms and turned on the cell ratings setting again. That thing I mentioned before about entitlement/quality.... now you have to go over your whole prison and figure where everyone's been moved to and fix it all again......... hella annoying.

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This guide will show you how to properly set up a kitchen and canteen to maximize efficiency and keep temperatures low.I will go through how to meet prisoner needs during eat and free time and how to efficiently build your logistics system.

Building Your Kitchen

What's the saying? The kitchen is the heart of the home? Something like that...Anyway, a kitchen is one of the main facilities in your prison. It is necessary to keep your prisoners fed, happy and in a non-'♥♥♥ this place' attitude.
The key to building a successful and efficient kitchen is a ratio. This ratio changes depending on your policy on food. But the default ratio (medium variety, medium quantity) is:

Prison Architect Layout Tips

• 1 serving table = ~40 prisoners.
• 1 serving table = 2 cookers.
• 1 cooker = 2 refrigerators.
• Preferably 1 sink for every serving table.
• Preferably 1 chef for every cooker.

These ratios should help you design your kitchen efficiently.
Space is also another important factor. Having all of your appliances in a small space is a massive fire hazard and will make it easier to spread fire, especially in escape mode. On the other hand, having them too far apart means that A, space is wasted and B, your staff will have to move around more meaning that time is lost moving from cooker to fridge. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but the extra second it takes a cook to move a certain distance is an extra second longer it takes to cook a meal and feed your inmates, these seconds can add up.
Compare these two kitchens:

Above is a very badly designed kitchen, it has no bins, no space to move around, and an incorrect ratio of cookers to fridges.
Below is a much better designed kitchen, it has the correct ratio (1 cooker = 2 fridges), a bin (to get rid of food waste) and a decent amount of space. Also, notice the sprinklers, kitchen fires are very common if you have events turned on and can get out of hand very, very quickly.
Metal detectors are extremely important in a kitchen, whether you have prisoners working in them or not. They are a common source of knives, digging tools (spoons, forks etc.) and can pose a serious threat to the security of your prison if you do not have them. Also, I have noticed that it is possible for prisoners to bypass them if they do not have a fence or wall either side. That is why I placed two brick wall either side of my metal detectors in the bottom image. An alternative is just to remove the doors altogether and replace them with metal detectors.

Building Your Canteen

Canteens are tricky to get right first time, especially if you are a new player.
The minimum furniture a canteen needs is tables, benches and serving tables. However, this is simply not enough to keep your prisoners happy.
Remember that ratio?

• 1 serving table = ~40 prisoners.

Keep that in mind.
Also, you will find that 1 table and 2 benches in a 4x3 rectangle will give you space for 8 prisoners.
Many people would play this game, build a canteen by throwing some chairs and tables and a serving table into a room and calling it a day, and then wonder why their prisoners are so unhappy. Simply put, this is a terrible way to design your prison.
During this process, it is also necessary to consider the amount of time your prisoners have to eat. Giving them too much will leave them bored and looking for something else to do (usually fighting) and having too little time will leave your prisoners half fed, which is absolutely not good.
Having one large canteen in the center of your prison will force all of your inmates to migrate toward it, clogging paths, gates and metal detectors. It will also open up the possibility of some of your prisoners being fed and some not. The best way to design a prison is to have one canteen per number of prisoners. In my current prison, I have one large 72 prisoner cell block which has its own canteen and kitchen. My prisoners only have to walk a short distance to get to their eating place. I only assign 2 hours of eating time for them as well, simply because I worked out that most of them will finish their meals within one hour, so I tagged on an extra hour to make sure any stragglers are fed as well. This may take some trial and improvement to get right.
Compare these two images:

In the above image, I built a very awful and badly thought out canteen. The prisoners have no space to move around and they have nothing to do other than eat and sit. This will not leave prisoners happy. I have constant fights and occasional deaths in this canteen.
The below image has plenty of space for prisoners to move around, has other facilities for them to use (toilets (very important), pool tables, phones and a TV). I have not experienced a single fight in this canteen.

Sorting Out Logistics

Logistics can be very overwhelming for new players, especially if they are not used to dealing with complex systems across multiple screens.
If you want to maximize efficiency, you will have to edit your logistics.
The logistics will tell your prisoners where to eat, where your cooks will send food and which kitchens will serve which canteens.
Yellow lines indicate where canteens will source food.
Red lines indicate where prisoners from different cell blocks will get food.
Clicking and holding shift will allow you to assign multiple canteens to multiple cell blocks. You should be able to work this out yourself.
Balancing demand with supply is very important. You should have an even amount of people sourcing food from each and every canteen (depending on the capacity of the canteen) and you should have the correct amount of food being sent to each canteen. This is why I find it easier to have one canteen to one kitchen.
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