United States Courthouse
Judges’ Award and Best Public Building

Decades of planning and politicking came to fruition in September when national, state and local officials unveiled the nation’s newest United States Courthouse in Orlando in a grand ceremony.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was on hand to call it “stunning” and “spectacular,” while others, such as judges and state politicians knowledgeable of the years-long effort to secure a new courthouse, noted the new building’s long journey to reality.

Designed by Leers Weinzapfel Associates of Boston which won the American Institute of Architects’ most recent Firm of the Year Award and built by Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Orlando, the $105 million, six-story, 336,000-sq-ft courthouse is the latest result of the General Services Administration’s Design Excellence Program.

The courthouse features nine district judge courtrooms; six magistrate judge courtrooms; as well as offices, detention cells and joint-use space for conference and training rooms. It also houses the District Court, the Clerk of Court, Pretrial Services, U.S. Probation and the U.S. Marshals Service.

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In a press statement announcing the project’s completion, GSA Administrator Lurita Doan said: “This new state-of-the-art courthouse, delivered on time and on budget, will enable the judges of the 11th Circuit to conduct the court’s business more effectively and efficiently well into the future. It is also our sincere hope that this beautiful facility will stimulate urban redevelopment efforts in the city of Orlando.”

Construction

The competing goals for the design and construction of the Orlando courthouse were the same as for other landmark federal buildings: balance the project type’s inherent security and blast-resistance criteria with the desire to deliver an open and community-friendly facility.

The building’s design includes a 10,500-sq-ft blast-resistant curtain wall; a 140-ft-tall entrance tower clad with blast-resistant precast concrete panels; and a stone-clad, five-story atrium with four glass-backed elevators.

In conforming to those blast criteria, the building now boasts roughly 475 lbs of reinforcing per cu yd of concrete, compared to a standard building’s 150-175 lbs of reinforcing per cu ft of concrete.

In Florida, federal buildings also must be able to conform to wind criteria, due to the likelihood of hurricanes. Through design analysis, the building’s resulting curtain wall design provided a system that was flexible enough for an acoustic wave that would result from a bomb detonation, yet rigid enough to withstand the sustained and gusting winds of a hurricane.

In addition to being affected by three hurricanes that crisscrossed Orlando in 2004, Hensel Phelps had to overcome man-made obstacles.

The first hurdle was getting out of the ground, an effort that was hindered by buried fuel tanks and underground natural-gas lines.

The city of Orlando was originally going to provide the project with offsite stormwater retention. However, when the city discovered hazardous materials while constructing this offsite pond, the contractor had to adapt.

Because the original site would be unavailable for seven months, Hensel Phelps devised a mitigation plan that included the construction of a temporary retention pond on the site.

Additionally, though the project is located just one block from the Orlando Police Department headquarters, thieves ransacked the construction site for steel cabling, equipment and office supplies, and even lit building insulation on fire. The project team was able to mitigate the resulting days to still complete the project on time.

Art

The GSA had an additional goal of significantly incorporating art into the new courthouse. This proved to be one of Hensel Phelps’ most challenging efforts.

The art glass provided by the late expressionist painter Al Held included one piece (actually made up of 23 units) measuring 50 by 20 ft that is the focal point of the building’s grand atrium, plus five smaller pieces that make up the procession of windows along the length of the atrium leading to the large work. The colored glass was chosen in Germany, cut and assembled in China and shipped to the Port of Miami for trucking to Orlando.

The task of managing the product’s design, manufacturing and installation required one year of planning prior to its onsite arrival. Because the glass could not be viewed until delivery for installation, Hensel Phelps had to expend considerable time to ensure its proper alignment and fitting into the spider fittings that ultimately would hold the art glass in place.

Hensel Phelps personnel monitored the progress of assembly of the glass in China and coordinated installation of the infrastructure by sending templates to China to use as a model for cutting the glass. This oversight ultimately resulted in a perfect fit once the glass was installed.

Design

GSA’s Design Excellence Program has generated a growing collection of architecturally unique federal courthouses around the country. And while a three-year dispute over the Orlando courthouse’s design delayed the project, the team’s selection of Leers Weinzapfel Associates as designer was ultimately vindicated.

In an editorial noting Leers Weinzapfel’s selection as AIA Firm of the Year, Robert A. Ivy, executive editor of Architectural Record, a publication of McGraw-Hill Construction, stated: “The firm has brought distinction to courthouses, such as the United States Courthouse in Orlando, or in Worcester, Mass. a challenging building type, made all the more difficult by the multitude of people affected by it.

“The list of clients for any courthouse is daunting: the commissioning authority (the federal government or a municipal authority), the occupants of the building (the judges, who sometimes act with supererogatory authority), the public (who may be facing the greatest threat, or tragedy, or hope, of their lives), and the community that surrounds them. Each of the firm’s courthouses reflects its users’ needs, but also shines out above them something that real architecture can do.”

Leers Weinzapfel’s own description of the building captures that practical but magical note. After listing its main functional areas, the firm states that the inclusion of the stained glass art transforms the building into “a modern secular cathedral.”

Moreover, the project was aimed at uniting the city’s downtown and a poorer residential neighborhood to the west. GSA states, “As a civic precinct, (it) serves as an important transitional point between these two different areas” and “creates an eight-acre campus for justice that serves as a public amenity for the neighborhood.”

Key Facts:
Owner: U.S. General Services Administration, Atlanta
Location: Orlando
Contractor: Hensel Phelps Construction Co., Orlando
Design Architect: Leers Weinzapfel Associates, Boston
Architect of Record: HLM Design/Heery International, Orlando

Click here for the Best of 2007 Slideshow

Click here for the Awards of Excellence 2007 Slideshow

Click here for the Awards of Excellence list

Click here for the Awards of Merit list