By: John J. Clark, AIA, NCARB
The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Justice Center is a stunning piece of contemporary architecture to the outsider. More importantly it offers a functional solution that is engrained in place, culture, and community for the tribe that it serves.
The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) is made up of two distinct tribes with separate traditions, cultures and languages. With originally over 500,000 acres in its traditional domain, Pima and Maricopa tribal lands have been reduced to about 54,000 acres in the Salt River Valley. The reservation stands out from satellite image as an agricultural community facing the pressures of urbanization with Scottsdale to its north and west, and Mesa to the South. Pressure also exists from a rapid increase in tribal population as well, as the community has seen its number of members swell from about 5,600 in 2001 to over 9,000 in 2018.
Resisting the impacts of urbanization, population growth, and technological advances is a concept Chief Judge Darayne Achin has termed ‘genetic memory.’ A champion for re-connecting youth with tradition and language, Judge Achin defines this concept as an intuitive understanding of and appreciation for place, identity, tradition, and community. The Gould Evans design team, led by Aaron Herring, RA, NCARB, LEED AP, used the architecture to tap into the genetic memory of the tribe and tell its story. Culture and tradition is woven into the building subtly, without the use of distinct indigenous elements or motifs.
The 93,000 square-foot SRPMIC Justice Center provides a continuity of services for the community as a “one-stop shop” integrated justice center. Two elongated volumes, one housing courtrooms and one housing the tribe’s legal practitioners, are situated around a central courtyard. The public enters from the east, as is customary in many Southwestern, indigenous cultures, into the main two-level, courtroom volume. A lobby, which is also used for community events, and clerk area welcome the public into the building that includes the tribe’s criminal, juvenile, civil, and appellate courts and their related program. The second level of this mass is accentuated by an exterior screen of rebar, aggregated vertically, that calls to mind traditional ocotillo or coyote fencing. Public circulation and waiting areas are oriented along the courtyard side of the building, offering views into courtyard landscape and sky.
Situated across the courtyard from the larger judicial mass is a single level of legal offices served by separate entrances, and connected to the court building by hallway. Its separation offers privacy and distance from the court and other functions, while maintaining connectivity and convenience. Housing the prosecutor, tribal defense, and legal services offices, the practitioner building is distinguished by horizontally oriented board formed concrete that is reminiscent of historic construction techniques. This rich, imperfect texture adds a tactile layer at the human scale, offering clues to the physical craft and making of the building. The Justice Center’s primary materials of concrete, weathered steel, and glass are crafted into a composition that allows this massive volume to nearly disappear into the landscape of indigenous plants that surround the building and fill the courtyard.
Chief Prosecutor Jeffery Harmon’s experience working in the new SRPMIC Justice Center through an emotionally difficult and stressful criminal case emphasized how the design impacted victim, staff, and community well-being. A variety of spatial settings and experiences accommodates various needs and situations including small and large meetings, community events, private waiting areas, children’s waiting areas, and space for staff to decompress and relax considering the difficult work that one can be exposed to. Victims and their families and reassured by the sense of safety and privacy provided by the architecture, and is comforted by their ability to walk to the courtroom as a team with their representation from the practitioner’s side of the building. Family members of victim’s have referred to the building as spa-like and therapeutic, in part due to the abundance of natural light and views to nature.
A key sign of success of the SRPMIC Justice Center is that the tribal members take advantage of the lobby and community space for a variety of community, educational and family events. By providing opportunities to engage with the building in non-traditional ways and in addition to judicial settings, the building will find its place in embedded in the memories Salt-River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. The building is not only a justice facility that promotes tribal well-being, but an asset to the civic realm, embedded with the tribes’ genetic memory.
End Notes:
“Shaping Tribal Well-Being”, AAJ Conference 2018, Jersey City, NJ, Achin Darayne, et al
John J. Clark, AIA, NCARB is an architect with RMKM Architecture in Albuquerque, NM. A graduate of the University of New Mexico, he currently serves the AIA Albuquerque Board of Directors as Young Architect Representative.
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