The State Society for Penitentiary Infrastructures and Equipment (SEIP) has awarded FCC an 78.5 million euro contract to build North 1 Penitentiary in Zaballa (Álava); the project is scheduled to be completed in 22 months.

The new centre will have 720 cells of varying security levels, plus support facilities which allow for the control, surveillance, custody, administration and reintegration of inmates.

The centre will be built as a small self-sufficient city. It will be comprised of 12 minicentres, with shared cultural, medical, sport and work facilities that meet all of the inmates' needs, reducing the need to resort to outside services and reinforcing the policy of reintegration, which is a penitentiary's ultimate objective.

The project includes sustainable criteria such as the use of materials whose production, manufacturing, and use is less polluting, and more efficient technology, rational use of resources (water and energy) and greater use of renewable energies; it also includes other corrective measures to reduce the environmental impact  through architectonic adaptation to topographical, climatic and solar conditions.

The new penitentiary will improve management by integrating the family visits module, enhancing inmate training facilities by providing more workshops and classrooms, and improving capacity and compartmentalisation via multi-purpose and closed modules.