2016 | public appearance | united states courthouse
program: federal administration | location: los angeles, california | status: academic STUDY
Many people suffer for years because of monotonous practice of courthouses..
The intention was to break this monotony and create a cold relationship between public and justice through this new courthouse which will be sited in Downtown, Los Angeles. Which is an undulated site and its four corners has three different height. So the orientation and Shape of the building was derived from different angles of site lines facing all directions.
Programs have been fitted into two masses which are interlocked and the front one holds all public programs and the rear taller mass holding the small one is for all private programs.
For the grounds, use of fuzzy reflective material was to get the image of the changing society, People get it while in looking and walking as soon as they enter the premise.
Building is enveloped by colorful textured glasses. The purpose of glass surface is to get natural light in entire space at its maximum. The reason of using colors is that it has always played an important role in the process of human evolution. It’s psychological influence and effects on the surface are aspects of our perceptual judgement system. Colors can speed up our thinking.
When Orange, Blue, Beige colors are mixed together on glass surfaces it gives greenish effect to the environment. Which makes the ambience soothing and calm that is essential for a federal building. Also, it gives the new building visual separation from the neighboring gray buildings of the city.
The idea of using fake surface printed at building façade was to surprise people so that they get connected with the building immediately. It upsets a lot of things that is assumption generally made about glass buildings. The myth that glass buildings are see through and kind of honest about how they are organized, what we see is what we get. If it is glass it must be truthful in its expression because the glass cannot hide anything.
But there is no such a thing that we get accurate transparency through glass. It is always illusive. It has the ability to bring natural light in while it blocks 60% of photon. That’s the physics of glass in best case scenario. Sometimes it is see through and even it is see though we still lose something. So the story glass equals to honest transparency - no nonsense translation from inside to outside.
We all must know now that’s a lie. Even the science given for it is also a lie. So given that it’s a lie we can just prove whatever we want.
2016 SPRING | 2GAX | m. Arch | SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE
Program brief to include:
Edge of site as security threshold/Ant-terrorism measures
Public Entry and Lobby
Private Entry for staff
Public Security Control Offices
Front House Circulation and Waiting Area
Back of House Circulation
24 Courtrooms
32 Judge’s Chambers
Prisoner/ Accused and Police entry and check-in
Police station
Prisoner/ Accused holding cells
Courthouse Administration
site Area: 633,000 SFT
Total Height: 190’ [16 storied]