Poetic justice - interiors of courthouse in Hampshire County, England - Interior Design

Architectural Review, The, April, 1995 by Penny McGuire

A new courthouse instils a much needed civic spirit in the centre of a once fine but now fragmented English town.

Over the past decade or so, Hampshire County Architect's Department, under the leadership of Colin Stansfield Smith, has consistently produced buildings of great variety, originality and sensitivity. Lyrical in spirit and form, and plainly appreciated by those who inhabit them, such buildings have influenced the design of educational building far beyond the confines of Hampshire. Problems have arisen from their popularity, and with overcrowding threatening, the dreaded temporary additions are beginning to make an appearance.

Such structures are symptomatic of the Conservative government's attitude to spending on education. In this climate, Stansfield Smith's department's attention is being drawn towards civic building and the urban fabric. Hampshire could well do with such attention, for it is hard to think of any other English county with so many towns blasted apart from the '60s onwards by the road engineer and office development.

The department has recently been responsible for the design of the Magistrates Courthouse in the centre of Fareham. Once a market town with a fine Georgian centre, it was largely eroded during the '60s by road developments and only the Georgian high street has been left intact. The place is frankly a dump with the road engineers' influence still extant. Its centre incredibly borders a roundabout, and the courthouse site is bounded on the west main entrance side by Trinity Street, made one-way and therefore inevitably speedy for no discernible reason.

The design of courthouses in Britain must satisfy Home Office criteria. They include protection from attack in the form of modern weaponry, a consideration that militates against siting the buildings inside towns. In spite of this, the architects thought it important that Fareham's new courthouse should be located firmly in the middle. Such buildings have important significance, their presence symbolising the public administration of justice that is central to an orderly society. They may have to be defensive in nature, rather than socially extrovert, yet their presence should have a psychologically civilising effect.

The new three-storey building is designed to withstand bomb blast. It occupies the west side of a sloping site, while on the far side of a garden on the east is an existing Georgian building occupied by the Registrar's offices. As an architectural response to the domestic context and complex function, the courthouse is both sensitive and intelligent. Walking up Trinity Street, you first confront the barrel-vaulted outline of the southern elevation. Viewing this south side, you would not be surprised to find the building in more southerly latitudes among an olive grove. Without being overbearing in scale, externally the building has a solid archetypal presence produced by simple form with minimal apertures.

As well as four courtrooms, the brief demanded various kinds of accommodation for the administration, the public, the magistrates, officers and those in custody. The Courthouse deals with hugely diverse cases. They range from marital disputes to initial murder hearings, bringing different dramas and characters in their wake, all of which have to be kept more or less apart before coming together in the courtrooms.

Clear enough on plan, and perfectly comprehensible in practice, the logistics inherent in designing the Courthouse had presented the architects with a nightmare. Making use of changing levels, the building is organised on the same principle as a maze except that there are separate routes for magistrates and the various public parties to a common destination - the four barrel-vaulted courtrooms, each with ancillary rooms, on the south side. Grouped in pairs, one is formal; the other for marital and juvenile hearings is informally arranged. The public is drawn through the building, following a west-east axis stepped up from the ceremonial door and entrance hall on the ground level on the west, to the gardens on the east. Another route from north to south was established for officers and magistrates. The latters' accommodation above the main area of activity, is on the second level reached from a private entrance on the north side.

Another layer of clarification has been imposed by the use of light. Because the scale was restricted, the building is deep and daylight introduced through tall white light towers. Penetrating the mass, the towers of light act as reference points in the austere architecture of the interior, with openings and screens to enhance the plays of light and volume. Elsewhere, illumination from skylights in the barrel vaults of the courtrooms has its own drama and metaphorical significance. In general, materials are austere and details intrigue.

This building is a dignified addition to Fareham, and it is a great pity that the authorities in charge of its care seem not to have recognised this. There are already signs of neglect: plants in the courtyard of the lightwell not being watered for instance. Externally the building has not weathered well, but it is awaiting new rendering. On the north side, where there is a bleak expanse of car parking, the prospect would be vastly improved by tree planting - as is commonly done in France.