By Jim Beight, AIA, LEED AP
Courthouses have long served as the centers of community throughout the world, playing an instrumental role in civic identity and continuity. These important buildings have served to connect governments with their citizens while symbolizing the noble tradition of enduring justice.
Despite this grand mission, courthouses as a facility type have often fallen short in terms of providing a user-friendly experience for the general public. The 2015 State of the State Courts survey, conducted by the National Center for State Courts, found that only 41 percent of respondents in the U.S. rated courts as good or excellent when asked “How would you rate the job being done by courts in (your state)?”
Recognizing that there are many different types of courts—some offering multiple court-related services; others part of a larger, integrated group of public service functions—the National Association for Court Management (NACM) and the American Institute of Architects’ Academy of Architecture for Justice (AIA-AAJ) recently collaborated to produce a new guide on developing user-friendly court structures. The 2016 guide, Creating a User-Friendly Court Structure and Environment, encourages court planners and designers to think strategically about user priorities and “how accommodation of those may fit into the overall mission of the court.” The guide focuses on the building, people, technology, and resources.
Blending inspiration and function
The guide acknowledges that courthouses play two important roles: inspiring awe at the role the judicial system plays in our lives, and facilitating the process—in all its incremental steps—that enables justice to prevail. In a well-designed courthouse, these must be given equal attention. Designing a courthouse presents the challenge of staging various functions and accommodating highly choreographed circulation and activity while balancing form and function, openness, and security. The first chapter of the guide addresses the building-related features that contribute to a positive user experience while meeting these parameters.
Planning for the design of a user-friendly courthouse must begin early. The AIA’s Sustainable Justice Committee has established a set of guidelines that address sustainability more broadly, transcending resource conservation to include a productive connection between buildings and society. Toward that end, courthouses should not only facilitate the traditional justice process (Facility Scale), but also meet a higher standard for Societal, Community, and Human Scales of sustainability, creating “a positive impact beyond what occurs inside their walls.” The guide also calls for a visioning process that “undergirds the work of restorative justice” and encourages a community’s active role in the court structure’s creation.
Courthouse organization
The organization of the courthouse is vital in creating a user-friendly experience. This includes design strategies to ease traffic through the courts, orient visitors, and enhance security operations. The guide addresses queuing space adjacent to the main lobby, wayfinding within the main lobby, visibility of highly accessed functions, and circulation. Open circulation in particular supports visual surveillance while simplifying wayfinding.
Accommodating the public
While security in a courthouse is paramount, this does not preclude the creation of an inviting and comfortable environment that is responsive to visitors’ physical and emotional needs. Long-term durability requirements can also be balanced with design solutions that yield warm and welcoming spaces.
Courthouse security can be softened through “discreet security integration strategies.” Vehicle ramming barriers, for example, can include concrete bench seating and landscaping. Courthouse steps and perimeter walled courtyards can serve as amenities. The guide includes a number of suggestions for integrating security in such a way that the user experience is not compromised.
Much of the user experience in a court environment revolves around waiting. This can have a major impact on the quality of the experience, with important considerations such as the amount of space for queuing and waiting; seating and other furnishings; protection from the weather if outside; access to amenities; and access to views, artwork, landscaping, and so forth. The inclusion of a childcare center may also be important.
Personal empowerment
Courthouses can be imposing, intimidating, and stress-inducing environments. The formality of the structure, however, can be balanced with strategies to support user comfort and minimize stress. One stress-reducing approach is to provide users with a sense of control, offering options such as taking the elevator or the stairs, taking a break inside or out, sitting out in the open or finding respite in a quiet nook. “Zones of retreat” may be helpful in minimizing situations of confrontation or stress. Some users may also find comfort in not feeling too enclosed, with views to the outside and corridors that parallel sidewalks.
The guide also reviews trends in technology that have recently transformed the trial process. Court structures must accommodate advanced audio-visual systems and other technological infrastructure, balancing affordability and flexibility.
Getting copies of the guide
The guide is now available to all NACM members as a member benefit. To learn more about NACM membership, visit www.nacmnet.org. Copies can be purchased by non-members using this order form. or by contacting NACM association services at (757) 259-1841. The guide may also be viewed online.
National Association for Court Management. (2016) Creating a User-Friendly Court Structure and Environment. The Building. The People. The Technology and Resources.
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Jim Beight, AIA, LEED AP, is a senior principal with Dewberry. He was a member of the 2016 Guide Workgroup for “Creating a User-Friendly Court Structure and Environment.”
(Return to the cover of the 2017 AAJ Journal Q1 issue)