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Concept
Bordeaux Law Courts
In response to the site constraints and mindful of the historical buildings nearby, the building is placed hard up against the Cours d’Albert, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, while the remainder of the site along the medieval ramparts is left open as public landscaped space with views towards the cathedral and central Bordeaux.
The administrative areas, including judge’s and lawyer’s chambers, offices for magistrates and support staff are contained within a five-storey rectilinear block along the street frontage. This form with its enclosing roof creates a legible container of parts, and a volume into which the public spaces are placed and articulated.
As a reaction to the ‘corridors of power’, the framed volume also contains and expresses the various segregated circulation routes. The Salle des Pas Perdus is aligned and connected to the existing building, the legibility of the vertical circulation system is fundamental to the organisation of the building and a direct expression of the judicial process. At third-floor level, an elevated walkway provides access for defendants and plaintiffs. Judges have a separate and secure circulation system via bridges across the void, while members of the public enter via a raised walkway along the courtyard.
Public space flows around the ‘vessels’ containing the courtrooms which sit on a plinth of two levels of offices. All of the architectural elements are contained within a great steel frame with a 76 metre long glazed wall, exposing the courts to view from the landscaped courtyard. The entire composition is topped by an undulating, copper-clad roof that forms a loggia over the stairway between the external courtyard and the administration wing.
In contrast to the open, glazed Salle des Pas Perdus and the light-weight steel-framed roof, the courts themselves are contained spaces, lit naturally from the top. Tapered in section and rounded in plan, the forms of the courtrooms echo the mass of the adjoining medieval towers as well as recalling Kentish oast-houses and traditional boat-building. Supported on pilotis, they stand behind a near invisible glass curtain wall, their conical profile penetrating the roof above to facilitate natural ventilation.