E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse

The design of the new annex to the existing U.S. Courthouse in the nation’s capitol is a significant new landmark along “America’s Main Street”- Pennsylvania Avenue. The project required an architectural approach which emphasized the new addition as a foreground element in the dialogue between existing and new structures. The resulting design places a cylinder containing judges’ chambers projecting forward of the line of the existing building, with the body of the structure modeled with curved roof forms denoting the positions of the courtrooms along its length. The space between the new and existing building is a large public atrium which supplies much needed relief and daylight to a highly internalized existing plan.

Our firm served as the courts planning and design consultant on this project, which called for the addition of nine new district courtrooms and chambers, four new circuit chambers, and office space convertible to courtrooms. The final size of the project is over 850,000 square feet.