MIXOPHILIA IN ARCHITECTURE: Shared housing in prison buildings
Architecture.Prison.Myxophobia.Mixophilia.
The penitentiary system has changed over time, where punishment has focused on the soul and no longer the individual's body. Total institutions, in general, seem to want to docile prisoners in their own way, imposing rules, schedules, and a series of bureaucracies for their normalizing devices – which seems to reflect in the digital age. However, prison works differently from what is imposed, whether through agreements with fellow prisoners, whether with the institution itself, or through architectural interventions, where the issue of autonomy is always present. The research project proceeds along this line and also from mixophilic (pleasure dealing with strangers) and mixophobic (negative reaction to contact with strangers) feelings and agreements. The study navigates through architecture, sociology , anthropology and psychology, when studying the behavior of the prisoner towards the institution and vice versa. Understanding how these constant relationships take place, understanding how they can be present in today's society, through the multidisciplinarity of studies, became the focus of this project.