Project
Courthouse Design Approach
Finegold Alexander Architects is an award-winning architectural firm with six decades of experience designing new, renovated, adaptive reuse, and historic preservation courthouse projects for federal and state agencies. We are sought out for our expertise and creativity in distilling complex program requirements into transformational courthouses for both existing and new facilities.
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Awards
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Project EUI
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"The Fall River Justice Center project came in on-time and on-budget, and has resulted in a highly functional and efficient courthouse as well as a great civic presence and focal point for Main Street in Fall River. The design is simple, elegant and well-detailed, is easy to maintain and looks as good today as it did when it was completed."
Elizabeth Minnis, AIA, former Deputy Commissioner, DCAMM
COURTHOUSE DESIGN APPROACH
Site Planning
A hallmark of Finegold Alexander’s work across all sectors is our decades of expertise with challenging urban contexts and complex sites. For buildings that serve the public, we place particular emphasis on civic presence and access, to ensure each design meaningfully reflects and serves its community.
Visioning Sessions
We work collaboratively and diligently to synthesize our client’s goals into meaningful design solutions. We believe ideas are derived from the dialogue between owner, agency, architect, consultant, and user, grounded in context and informed by experience. This process uncovers what is valued from the past, responds to present needs, and anticipates future aspirations. By listening, observing, distilling, and refining these collective insights, we create buildings that reflect those values.
Program Right Sizing
Building on our experience, Finegold Alexander works with our clients to determine programmatic right-sizing which considers constraints including budget and physical space. Minimizing or optimizing space with considerations for future growth in both existing and new buildings is key. Additionally, best practices and emerging court planning trends are considered for different adjudication styles, operational issues, security, flexibility, and technological considerations including electronic filing and case processing.
Design Flexibility & Cost Control
Our design team finds creative ways to account for future growth. One example to respond to changing caseloads is to design spaces like Mediation Suites within a courtroom structural bay so that it can easily be transformed into a future courtroom.
Sustainable Design
Finegold Alexander is dedicated to the creation of high performance, sustainable buildings. We work with clients to identify and quantify benefits and costs through an iterative lifecycle assessment analysis that evaluates first costs, operating expenses, and returns on investment. We test solutions by conducting sensitivity analyses, which incorporate replacement and long-term maintenance costs and identify strategies that have multiple benefits for the least cost.
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Guiding Principles
During our decades of courthouse design experience, we have developed a set of guiding principles that provide the framework for achieving design excellence. Our work produces courthouses that are enduring in character, efficient to operate, and responsive to their surroundings and communities. These ideals are derived from listening to our clients and their user agencies, feedback, firsthand evaluations of our completed work, and ongoing leadership in justice design forums.
Accessibility
We embrace a broader definition of accessibility and endeavor to think beyond the textual code requirements to understand the underlying intent.
Maintainability
Materials are selected for their durability, maintainability, dignity, biophilic, and sustainable qualities.
Dignity
Our goal is to create justice facilities that are both welcoming and inspiring by balancing the human scale with the civic presence a courthouse represents to the foundation of our democracy. We strive to express the stability, integrity, and importance of the judicial system, while also accommodating its capacity to evolve and reflect the people it serves.
Community
Each courthouse is thoughtfully designed for the community that it serves.
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“I want to say that you, Tony and your staff really listened to us and helped us to shape our program needs into a very striking and handsome building ... your firm's skills and design expertise are evident for all to see.”
