Justice & Gvmt
Justice & Gvmt
Cultural, Education
Cultural, Live/Work/Play
The Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners recognize that their courthouse campus is foundational to the collective memory of the place of Concord, North Carolina and an iconic cultural asset of its residents. There was great insistency that the new courthouse addition serving this dynamically growing community would remain a part of the courthouse square. The resulting design solution is built on the transformation of Means Avenue into a rich urban plaza, turning an under-utilized one-way street into a pedestrian space for social and civic engagement.
Concept
Situated within this new urban plaza, the public entry space serving the new courthouse addition will be a connective element, addressing Union Street to the south and Church Street to the north. The new courthouse plaza will serve as an artery for pedestrian movement and economic energy that will drive sensitive urban revitalization for decades to come.
An Architecture as an Abstraction of Textile Patterns
Influences of movement, ordering, rhythm, and patterning were deeply inspired by the creation techniques of the local maker culture. Predominant recognition is contrived for the interconnected layering of site circulation networks as extensions of the external urban thoroughfares (yarns). Campus site development transitions (weaves) organically into the intricate and complex internal paradigm of building circulation and secure zoning (fibers).
Envelope materials further engage the scale and movement of the pedestrian with mullion repetition and the associated sun-shading motif; elements abstracting the production of the protective container (cloth wrap). There was a deep exploration of motion and juxtaposition of still-forms, and their placement, in-balance, as it relates to unbiased justice.
Kyle Bilafer, Cabarrus County, NC
