Mr. Vernon Gong led the structural design for the Two Rivers Correctional Institution, a 19-acre, medium and minimum-security correctional institution located in Umatilla, Oregon. Operating housing units since 1999, the low-rise two-story building has a budgeted capacity of 1,802 inmates, including 1,674 medium-security beds and 128 minimum-security beds. The stand-alone facility has approximately 440 staff total, with about 280 full-time staff for security.
The design of the facility departs from typical campus type prison designs, as it was intended to meet the state of Oregon’s new constitutional mandate that requires all inmates to be engaged in productive work for 40 hours per week. Recognizing that inmates may be involved in various industries work programs for up to three shifts per day, secure corridors interconnect housing units with industries spaces, resulting in a single monolithic building.
The Two Rivers project has been named “the rock,” as it was constructed on top of a rock plate. Fill dirt and top soil were brought in to provide an adequate amount of soil to cover the rock and to backfill around the concrete.
