Policing Architecture: fostering wellbeing through police station [re]design

The architecture of New Zealand Police (NZP) stations is in a pivotal place, uniquely positioned to empower, mediate and facilitate interactions between the general public, police staff and vulnerable members of our community including offenders and victims. However, the current police station environments embody outdated policing philosophies, with little spatial reflection of modern community or wellbeing values.

This thesis explores the hypothesis that police station architecture can proactively contribute to wellbeing outcomes desired by police and the community. Using design as a tool, it looks at both the process of design and design outcomes to explore how wellbeing values can be integrated into a built policing environment, historically dominated by technical values of safety, authority, and social control.

The thesis recognises the unique characters of the general public, police staff, detained persons, and vulnerable people as catalysts of wellbeing, and proposes a conceptual police station environment that addresses this. Using an iterative design process, the thesis synthesises design experiments into a culminatory police station building located in Wellington, New Zealand. It reflects on this process and comments on the ability of design to empower communities and NZP to create safer neighbourhoods together.