 |
by Lee Becker, FAIA, and Steve White, AIA, LEED AP
Hartman-Cox Architects
In 2005, the citizens of Denver voted to build a new judicial
center that will expand Denver’s Civic Center campus two full
city blocks to the west. The complex includes a new 30-plus
courtroom Courthouse, a parking garage and a new pre-trial and
pre-sentence detention center/jail, the largest component of the
three. It is easy to understand voting to build a new Courthouse
with a parking structure, but why build such a large jail in the
Civic Center, the symbolic public core of downtown Denver.
Inherently jails are not urban place makers, nor are they
celebrated destinations as museums, libraries, cultural buildings,
or even courthouses. Their operational demands and security
constraints outweigh aesthetic considerations. However, jails
provide an essential role in the judicial process and a tremendous
practical and symbolic benefit comes from locating them in town,
immediately adjacent to the judicial buildings they serve.
Like many other cities, Denver’s Civic Center forms the
city’s spatial and architectural center of gravity. An
offspring of Daniel Burnham’s “City Beautiful”
movement, the buildings and spaces are magnificent. The gold
leaf-domed capitol proudly frames the east side of the Civic Center
park, which cascades down to the Beaux Arts “City and
County” building, the neoclassical Carnegie library and
Italianate Federal Mint. The Denver Public Library and art museums
enhance this collection of venerable buildings. The new courthouse
and jail will expand this campus two full city blocks to the west,
and form a new judicial plaza to link the emerging mixed-use
neighborhoods to the south with the central business district to
the north.
The Denver Justice Center plaza with the new Detention Center on
the left.
Rendering by Vladislav
Yeliseyev
The jail’s exterior design is mindful of its seriousness of
purpose without being foreboding. The massing will preserve views
from the capitol steps to the Rockies. Facades reinforce the street
walls established by the existing Civic Center buildings along the
main avenues to strengthen the continuity of the surrounding
streetscape plan. The abstracted classical organization of base
middle and top will relate to the original Civic Center buildings
while transitioning to the more contemporary new courthouse. The
exterior material will be textured, “shot sawn,” Indiana
limestone, in concert with its neighbors. The outdoor recreation
yards are inner courts, facing away from the street, enhancing
privacy between the detainees and the public. These courts bring
daylight to the interior while generating a solid modern exterior
appearance. The main entry facade steps down to an open colonnade
establishing a pedestrian scale along the public space. The
resulting form is a simple backdrop to the judicial plaza in
deference to the new courthouse, designed by Denver based, klipp
architects.
Ricci Green Associates, Voorhis Robertson Justice Services, Oz
Architecture, and Hartman-Cox Architects were committed to
designing a safe, secure, “normative” environment, i.e.
one that maintains the humanity and dignity of detainees, and one
that enables a quick and speedy trial process. A constant refrain
through the planning process was “operations drives
design.” This is true as operational requirements are rigorous
and safety, security, and clarity of circulation are all paramount.
Housing types will be near respective support functions to shorten
travel distances within the building. The result is a simple
concise plan for a five story, 440,000 square foot, 1,500-bed
building.
The detention center will have a range of housing types, from open
dormitories to high security units, to meet the specific needs of
detainees. Ricci Green Associates, Voorhis Robertson Justice
Services and the Denver Sheriff’s Department developed a
detainee classification process to match detainees to the most
appropriate housing type. Supervision is direct, as the
sheriff’s staff is in the dayrooms rather than in separated
officer stations. The detention window design will maximize
daylight in the dayrooms and provide a visual connection to the
outdoor recreation areas. There is a range of options for family
visitation. All of these features are critical for a normative
environment.
The close proximity to the courthouse will shorten the wait to
trial by streamlining detainee transport. Currently, detainees who
arrive by bus from the suburbs are openly ushered across the street
from the front of the Federal Mint to the City and County Building.
Detainees will now be booked, processed and released or classified
within the building. Transfer from housing to the courthouse will
be via a secure tunnel. Transfers to and from the detention center
will occur in an enclosed vehicle sally port, out of public view.
The downtown location provides immediate access to public
transportation for those released. An arraignment courtroom and a
pretrial hearing room are located in the detention center
immediately adjacent to detention housing to minimize
circulation.
The downtown location expresses Denver’s confidence in the
judicial system and its empathy for all of its citizens. Rather
than building the jail “out of sight and out of mind,”
locating the detention center in the Civic Center shows a
commitment to transparency in the system and to every
citizen’s right to a swift judicial process. Denver’s
correctional system engages detainees in vocational, cognitive and
religious educational programs to improve welfare of detainees so
that, at some point, they can successfully rejoin the community and
not come back. Our goal for the building is to foster that mission
and create a positive addition to the Civic Center.
|
