Mid-Review Progress

by fcahill

For the mid-review last week, I was able to take stock of where I have come with my design and can now move forward with the feedback from the review.

From the beginning, I have been focusing on the building form and how that can represent as well as function as a ‘movement’ metaphor; for the public who comes to the courthouse as well as the system itself.  I presented alot of process from my beginning thoughts on movement, how it could translate to the court-set and then the courtroom design itself.  From those sketches, I jumped into the built form in conjunction with floor plans.  This was a very challenging part of the design because the 3 different circulations (public, private and in-custody) needed to be kept separate but still be economic in square footage. I was able to come to a solution by treating the courthouse as a Municipal courthouse (which it is) and not as a federal courthouse, where the separation of the private and public circulations are much more strict and necessary.  With the circulation, the biggest issue was the in-custody movement because with the rotation and setback of the courtset on each floor, if something worked on the 4th floor, it may not work on the 1st floor; I finally realized that I would have to have the criminal and magistrate courtrooms on the floors 1 and 2 in order to make it work.

I like where my form is at the moment, but with the feedback from Friday, I have a number of ideas that I want to try out and see where they lead.  This will also help in streamlining my plans because I feel that much of my support spaces can be better worked into the scheme of the building.