Miami Courthouse Development, Florida, USA
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This $129,000,000.000 courthouse of 77,784 SF stands at the end of the axis created by an urban promenade. Located on what were once separate blocks, the towers face east and west. Each is dramatically lifted three stories off the ground by massive free-standing and engaged limestone columns. The center atrium is elevated above the plaza to maintain the physical and visual axis through the building. The façades are scored with a pattern of mullions suggesting the different functions within— from tall, broadly spaced lines that announce public spaces to shorter, more densely packed divisions that delineate the offices on lower levels.
photographs © Robin Hill
The profile is characterized by the layering of different forms and details. Courtrooms, judges’ chambers, and court-related office space are defined as two glazed towers edged in sand-colored precast concrete. Joining the two towers is an 8-story curved glass form that appears as the hull of a great ship held inside and rising above the framework of the towers. With its prow pointed south, this volume is defined by an expansive blue-green curtain-wall highlighted with slender horizontal sunscreens in various lengths and locations. In the paired east and west tower façades, the precast concrete frame is thicker at the bottom edge of one and the top edge of the other. In the same elevations, the wall of one building moves out while the other is pulled back.
images © Norman McGrath
The building is about openness, with exterior and interior engaging each other as if in dialogue. The planimetric design is based on four-courtrooms per floor. The two court towers are connected by a generous circulation lobby, occurring on every floor, and rising dramatically throughout the entire height. The courtrooms themselves are designed with clerestories for natural light. The transparency is most evident in the central section where floors seven through 14 are a multistory atrium penetrated by an expanding cone of colored glass piercing through the lobbies and decreasing in size as it rises through the building, terminating in a skylight. At night, the cone is illuminated and can be seen through the façade.
picture : Julio Espana, © Arquitectonica
A contemporary colonnade surrounds the south tower entrance alluding in its mass and scale to classical porticoes. These columns are the threshold to a five-story glass walled lobby. The floor is slate, and interior walls are covered in irregularly staggered vertical limestone panels. At the north end elevators rise to upper floors; to the south, an escalator dramatically crisscrosses the lobby to the fifth floor jury assembly area.
photos © Robin Hill
Levels five and six span the entire length of the building but on levels seven and higher the light-filled atrium divides each floor. On the courtroom levels, ten through 13, the walls are lined with the same limestone found in the lobby. On these floors, elevators open into waiting areas with expansive views. Courtroom plans in the east and west towers are mirror images of each other. These spaces have clerestory windows that bring in natural light. Finishes include fabric acoustical panels and overlapping, multidirectional cherry wood paneling. The furnishings and fixtures are walnut. In the rear center of each courtroom, the judge’s bench is faced with teak and limestone in front of a backdrop of wenge wood panels. Of particular visual interest are the folded, origami-like courtroom ceilings. These provide acoustical benefits and reinterpret a signature detail of the building that visitors first encounter in the water wall under the open portal.
Award:
2007, American Institute of Architects Academy of Architecture for Justice, Design Certificate of Citation
Miami Buildings
Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. United States Federal Courthouse - Information:
Location
400 North Miami Avenue, Miami, Florida 33128
Owner
General Services Administration
Region 4
401 West Peachtree Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30365
Terry Fuquea, Senior Project Manager, Real Estate, Design and Construction
terry.fuquea@gsa.gov
Tel: 404 331-1305
Fax: 404 331-7063
Architect’s formal firm name, address, telephone and fax number
Design Architect
ARQUITECTONCIA
in joint venture association with
Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum
Arquitectonica
801 Brickell Avenue Suite 1100
Miami, Florida 33131
Telephone: 305.372.1812
Fax: 305.372.1175
Partners-in-Charge of Design
Bernardo Fort Brescia, FAIA; Laurinda Spear, FAIA
Architect of Record
Arquitectonica
Associate Architects
Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum
4040 NE 2nd Avenue, Suite 301
Miami, Florida 33137
305.573.5101
Interior Designer:
ARQUITECTONICA INTERIORS
Size: 577,784 GSF
Published Budget $129,000,000.00
AWARDS
2007 AIA Academy of Architecture for Justice, Certificates of Citation
Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse : Project Description
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Comments / photos for the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. United States Federal Courthouse page welcome: info@e-architect.co.uk
Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse Miami page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt
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