Article source: Hamonic+Masson & Associés

Facing justice is an experience that disconnects us from the usual discourse of life. How and to what extent can architecture affect our behavior, soothe or exacerbate our feelings? What is conventional is that the solemnity, the order and the rigor of architecture are there to signify the authority of Justice. For the litigant or for the one who demands justice, subjected to the test of his vulnerability, shouldn’t we expect architecture to be welcoming, soothing the effects of a suffered violence?

Architecture must have meaning. It must speak, tell stories and make us question: a site, a program, a group of people and a story. It is a matter of specificity since architecture is the art of conjunction.

Image Courtesy © Takuji Shimmura

• Architects: Hamonic+Masson & Associés
• Project: The Courthouse of Douai
• Location: Douai, France
• Photography: Takuji Shimmura
  
• Project Manager: Public Agency for Justice Real Estate
• Environmental Engineering: Cap Terre
  
• Engineering + Economist: Scoping
  
• Acoustics: JP LAMOUREUX
  
• Cost: 7,6 Million € HT
  
• Gross Floor Area: 1800 m2
  
• Delivered: 2019
  

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