For this official building in Manchester, England Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall have won their country’s most prestigious architecture prize- the RAIA Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture 2007.

Denton Corker Marshall’s 15 level court complex is the practice’s first major public building in the UK.

Opened on 24 October 2007, the Manchester Civil Justice Centre is the biggest court complex to be built in the UK since the Royal Courts of Justice in London 1868-82.

It has the largest glass wall in Europe: a 63m by 60m cavity glass wall as a façade along its western edge supported by sixty metre high triangular atrium columns all suspended from the atrium roof.

It has an 11-storey atrium.

Wind scoops facing the direction of the prevailing wind circulate air through the building to provide natural ventilation when internal temperatures reach higher than desired i.e. in summer. A conventional ventilation system becomes engaged by a computer-controlled weather station on the roof, when wind speed is too low for the natural ventilation system to function and when it is not summer.

Due to the centre’s large open floor spans, Mott MacDonald used its bridge designers to analyse floor vibrations including the effects of foot fall.

The RAIA jury citation reads:

‘This extraordinary new project in Manchester was the result of an international design competition for what is the largest court complex to be built in the United Kingdom for a number of years.’

‘The design of the complex advances a range of ideas about how an institution with hundreds of years of precedent can be made relevant to contemporary society. The bold design replaces the traditional solid courthouse structure, which contains and encloses justice, with an idea about transparency and connection.’

‘The layered walls, which give the building its distinctive plan form and profile, are essentially varying layers of transparency and solidity, each layer proposing a specific relationship with either the city of Manchester or the court users. The high glazed wall for the public atrium at the building’s forecourt links the building directly to a space of the city. Within the interior of the courts, this transparency continues to mediate the public’s relationship with the court functions. The major courts themselves are arrayed in a dramatic series of cantilever forms at the ends of the building, suggesting quite literally the courts’ dynamic connection to the city.’

‘The effect of these architectural strategies is to position the courts as open and accessible within a contemporary democratic culture.’

For more information on the practice go to www.dentoncorkermarshall.com