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Architecture & Engineering


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April 6, 2005

AIA Project of the Month -- New courthouse: secure in its openness

  • Security issues, symbolism, funding cuts and the desire for a 200-year building result in a design problem of mind-boggling complexity.
    • By CLAIR ENLOW
    Special to the Journal

    U.S. Courthouse
    Photos by Frank Ooms
    Seattle’s new U.S. Courthouse clearly divides the functions of justice, placing courtrooms front and center. Evenly sized and stacked in the main tower, they are flanked by judicial chambers and backed by the low and long “office bar” to the right. Half of the full-block site is dedicated to an inviting — but secure — public space.

    In the news, courts are places of high drama. Some have been spectacular crime scenes, from the truck bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City 10 years ago, to the recent shootings in Atlanta.


     
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