The $122 million prison is located on a twenty-five-hectare greenfield site outside the town of Derby and is designed to hold up to 150 prisoners. The application of evidence-based research and experience led to a highly innovative design. Conceiving a “best practice” indigenous prison involved envisioning ways to meet diverse cultural and physical needs and allow various groups to live harmoniously within a confined site. Many people in the region continue to live traditional lifestyles in small remote communities. Each language group has distinct and diverse cultural practices and spiritual connections to country. The Kimberley is an area of over 421,000 square kilometres of dramatic landscapes and is home to Aboriginal people belonging to twenty-seven traditional language groups. The architects recognized early on in the design process that the potential users of the facility would come from diverse backgrounds.
