Entry

by cchlebda

Around fall break, I started to think about how to delineate an entry sequence for the courthouse. Up to this point, I had been drawing the lobby as a large space without any program, doors, or other articulation worked into it. Because I want my flex space to be a publicly accessible cafe (visitors wouldn’t have to go through security), the cafe and its various support spaces would be located in the lobby. The issue I faced was how to make an entry space with a kitchen, restrooms, and dining area in the lobby along with security screening stations and queuing areas, as well as vertical circulation for the courthouse. I looked at the walls I had been drawing as dividers between a secure atrium and the cafe in my previous plan iterations, and I realized that the “poche” of these walls could be thickened to contain the service spaces of the lobby/cafe (kitchen, restrooms,  circulation). The thickness of these “walls” turned spaces also created a human scale threshold to tuck the security screening station into, so that it wasn’t the first obvious thing a user would see upon entering the courthouse or cafe.

First Floor plan with articulated entry/atrium spaces

Entry/Approach sketches

As I worked on the lobby space, I continued to refine and develop the rest of the courthouse as well. I reexamined the courtroom in section and thought about how people in the alternate dispute resolution spaces (public) could start to see into the courtrooms from above. Likewise, I continued to develop the building form, refining the curvature of the roof and ceilings of the courthouse spaces.

Section through courtroom with view from ADR

Sketches – Judge’s bench in elevation, Roof form

Plan Diagrams

by JP Mays

These are the two typical plans of the upper floors of my design.  The courtrooms are double height, with restrooms stacked over the conference rooms below.  A main circulation zone runs between them, with an angled stair that punctures the facade as it increases in height, and two public elevators.  The in-custody elevator only serves one half of the courtrooms, so any criminal cases would need to be heard in those four.  There is also only one jury deliberation room per floor, which I now recognize is opposite that of the criminal courtrooms.  I will need resolve that issue as I refine these layouts.

 

Breaking Barriers

by cchlebda

As I mentioned in my last post, some design concerns I took away  from Mecklenberg County Courthouse included introducing natural light without glare (so the shades aren’t perpetually drawn) and creating a kind of side space for observers to “sneak out” of the courtroom without disturbing others. With these and other issues in mind, I reexamined my courtset design.

Model of Courtset with Vertical Fins

I began by breaking each courtroom’s side walls, which are adjacent to courtyards. Originally, I had introduced the courtyards in order to bring daylight and outdoor views to the “interior” jury deliberation spaces. Therefore, when I started to open the side walls of the courtrooms, I used a series of angled, vertical fins to block views from the courtroom into the jury room and vice versa. Using fins also allowed me to introduce softened, reflected light into the courtroom, rather than the kind of direct light that was constantly shut out of Mecklenberg County Courthouse. After modeling this scheme, I realized that  changing the location of the glass envelope in realtion to these fins also presented an opportunity to create a visual barrier between spectator seating and side entry aisles, preventing people from causing too much of a disruption as they come and go during court proceedings.

Courtroom with Side Entry Aisles

In addition to reevaluating my courtsets this week, I have begun to look at how the jury assembly spaces and circulation might fit into the overall building layout. I find the duality of the jury’s position in court to be of particular interest. That is, the jury must always be a simultaneously public and private entity. The jury must be public in the sense that its members, constitutionally, are the “peers” of the defendant and private in the sense that the jury cannot come into contact with the judge, defense, prosecution, or any other party that might try to influence their decision, resulting in a mistrial.

With this duality in mind, I have positioned the jury assembly spaces in the kind of residual floor level that exists “in-between” the courtroom levels. I have designed my courtrooms in section to be double-height on the south, public side and curve down to single-height on the north, private side. The “in-between” space where I have decided to place the jury is literally sandwiched by judges’ and staff’s single-height spaces (on the courtroom levels) in section and adjacent to the courtrooms above and below in plan. The jury itself is an intersection of public and private, and by positioning the jury in this residual, “in-between” space, I’ve  discovered another spatial way to intertwine public and private in the courthouse as a whole.

Jury Assembly and ADR sandwiched between private levels

Program Diagrams

by JP Mays

I have been focusing on relationships of program, circulation, and site. At the entry one passes through security and into a large lobby with access to services, child waiting, and the career center.  A central circulation core pierces up from the main level, gesturing towards uptown and the center city skyline.  An atrium connects all floors, providing a visual and aural connection to each level.  Separating the courtroom volumes creates an intermediate exterior terrace space, with views to the city center and also the nearby community.  The courthouses are stacked and staggered, each with their corresponding judge’s chambers, and shared jury deliberation between them.

Variance in privacy and promoting walkability

by workbymichelletodd

For the design of my courthouse, my approach has been different than my typical strategy. Instead of working in plan first, I worked in 3D form through modeling. Now that I have decided on a massing that seemed aesthetic and capture the essence of my idea, I have moved onto plan. Working in a reverse order from what I am used to has posed its challenges considering I want to remain as true as possible to the form I have developed, but because of programmatic reasons, the design is shifting slightly. While working with the programmatic spaces, I am trying to sort out the spaces by privacy. The greater the privacy needs, the higher the floor. To help carry the idea of walkability from the future urban plan into my courthouse, I am also trying to key in on the circulation of my building. With the introduction of a entrance volume that projects into the public realm of the sidewalk, passer-bys can be lured into the building, where they can access a kitchen that will provide jobs to the people who live around the courthouse. This kitchen will provide a space that allows people to interact with the building even if they are not there for legal purposes.

In these diagrams, the orange objects are courtrooms, the light blue spaces are jury deliberation rooms, the red is the circulation column, the yellow are the judge’s chambers, the light grey are support spaces and the dark blue is the kitchen. The image on the far right is a composite of all of the plans.