UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE Los Angeles, California The United States Courthouse in Los Angeles, California, was realized through the U.S. General Services Administration’s Design Excellence Program, an initiative to create and preserve outstanding public buildings for generations of use and enjoyment. August 2018 UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE Los Angeles, California 8 The New Los Angeles Courthouse in Context 10 The Move to Design-Build Delivery 14 Fundamental Geometry 20 Innovations in Efficiency 30 Art and the Courthouse Experience 36 The Design and Construction Team 43 U.S. General Services Administration and the Design Excellence Program 2 A new federal courthouse must express the dignity and participatory spirit that unites courthouses across generations. David Insinga, FAIA Chief Architect, GSA 3 4 5 6 7 THE NEW LOS ANGELES COURTHOUSE IN CONTEXT The courthouse has been a part of the have influenced the design of federal American landscape since the early 18th courthouses to this day, noting, “While any century, when colonial governments first new federal courthouse must meet the most erected structures where magistrates could sophisticated needs of its time, it must also oversee criminal justice and official record- express the dignity and participatory spirit keeping. Although law administration that unites courthouses across generations.” differed dramatically from place to place in this period, the courthouse buildings As the landlord of the federal civilian themselves shared common themes—of government, it is GSA’s responsibility to quiet strength, public participation, and construct new courthouses—squaring transparent governance—which have stood centuries-old expressions of design excellence the test of time. to increased federal caseload, security requirements, and other performance Many colonial-era courthouses comprised criteria of the contemporary judicial system. a single room, and eschewed grandiose The agency oversees multiple programs ornamentation for simple arcades and that help today’s courthouses embody the outdoor spaces. Yet these buildings gravity and openness of their smaller and managed to declare themselves as less complex historic predecessors. important civic landmarks and to serve as places to meet neighbors and exchange The United States District Court for the ideas. David Insinga, chief architect of Central District of California is one of the U.S. General Services Administration the nation’s busiest federal district courts, (GSA), explains that historic courthouse and prior to GSA’s opening of the new architecture achieved public stature United States Courthouse in Los Angeles precisely for its quiet seriousness. in October 2016, the district’s need for “Symbolically and functionally, America’s updated accommodations was palpable first courthouses both elevated justice and and dogged. In 1992 GSA completed a integrated it into everyday life,” Insinga tower to ease crowding from an existing says. He adds that early courthouses 1940 building, and even then, only some 8 district and bankruptcy judges could be working conditions to emergency status, housed in the new structure. Meanwhile, and two years later Congress appropriated the courtrooms in the older building did $400 million for a new facility. GSA was not meet standards for size or safety, and tasked with providing the Judiciary with the United States Marshals Service deemed needed space and realizing the latest stan- prisoner passageways unusable. dards for building security, environmental efficiency, and technological capacity. Gregg Miller, a facilities program manager at the Administrative Office of the U.S. The new courthouse would also have Courts, remembers the disadvantages of the to master challenges and opportunities two downtown buildings vividly. He notes unique to GSA’s development site: a full that, while separate circulation for judges, city block at First Street, within steps members of the public, and prisoners of the Los Angeles City Hall and the has been a standard of courthouse design proposed Grand Park. First Street runs in for almost four decades, the longtime a northwest–southeast direction and slopes courthouse in Los Angeles required judges 32 feet across the length of that property, to walk through the public lobby to reach presenting a serious barrier to universal a keyed elevator: “Historic courtrooms physical accessibility. In addition, the are very pleasing aesthetically, but their site borders both the Los Angeles Civic appearance does not outshine the aging Center and the high-rise Commercial infrastructure, obsolete systems, and Office District, as well as multiple public- other drawbacks of a vintage courthouse.” transportation nodes. “The design of the The 1992 building not only fell short of Los Angeles courthouse had to meld two meeting the Judiciary’s space demands, but distinct neighborhoods, extend the public also did not prefigure developments like sphere from Grand Park to the federal the digitization of law research. site, and support the transit network,” says Duane Allen, the GSA project In 2003, the Judicial Conference of the manager whom the agency charged United States elevated its Los Angeles with coordinating the new building. 9 THE MOVE TO DESIGN-BUILD DELIVERY Rapidly changing market conditions By 2012, however, a delivery method and other concerns prevented GSA known as design-build had gained from starting the new United States mainstream acceptance. It promised Courthouse in earnest until 2012. When notable schedule and cost efficiencies the moment to break ground finally did for the Los Angeles courthouse beyond arrive, the agency had to undertake the the construction and lifecycle savings 633,000-square-foot building with its achievable by design. remaining original funding, unadjusted for inflation. “The project needed to adopt Design-build delivery is an alternative innovations that equated to good economy to procuring design and construction and better lifecycle costs,” recalls Allen’s services using separate contracts. Under colleague Maria Ciprazo, who serves it, GSA advertises for an architect and GSA’s Pacific Rim Region as a director builder operating as a unit. In another of design and construction as well as contrast to the design-bid-build method, a regional chief architect. design-build delivery requires prospective teams to submit schematic designs in If GSA had commenced a courthouse competition for GSA’s patronage. GSA comprising 24 courtrooms and 32 chooses a design-build team based on the chambers in 2005, it would have quality of the competition design as well contracted with an architect to conceive as price and schedule. Selection of a team that facility based on a predetermined also locks in that team’s schematic design; budget and program. The agency would further design and construction takes place have then transmitted the architect’s after the contract award. drawings to the construction marketplace, from which a winning bidder would earn Design-build does have some drawbacks. It a contract to execute those drawings. This requires GSA, for example, to thoroughly dual-contract method, known as design- establish performance criteria for a building bid-build, traditionally had been GSA’s prior to contracting with a design-build preferred method of doing business. team. On the other hand, design-bid-build 10 projects demand GSA to allot significant qualify as the agency’s largest design-build time for realization, and it challenges effort to date. the agency to reconcile conflicting inter- pretations of contracts and seek cost- Architect Craig Hartman, senior consulting effective responses to change orders. By design partner of Skidmore, Owings & consolidating the management of design Merrill (SOM), says GSA subsequently and construction into one entity, design- took care to secure the advantages of build delivery streamlines procurement, design-build delivery while mitigating ensures constructability from a project’s its risks. SOM teamed with Clark outset, and reduces documentation. Construction to vie for the commission, and during the 12-week schematic-design While design-build’s origins date as far competition, “We had to develop a design back as 1949, it fully emerged in the world and make it detailed enough that we could of architecture and construction by the guarantee a price ceiling,” Hartman says. early 2000s. After careful consideration of “GSA and the judges were not able to have design-build’s pros and cons, GSA began the same influence as if they had advised employing it in 2009, when the agency our work directly, but they did articulate had to swiftly obligate American Recovery very clear guidelines that proved to be an and Reinvestment Act funds to projects important road map.” Clark senior vice and to execute those new buildings and president Marc Kersey adds, “There is renovations with equal speed. The effort always a push and pull between design was a success, and three years later GSA concepts and the cost model, but for GSA decision makers realized that it could apply it was incumbent upon us to face hurdles its new knowledge to the United States together and do what was right for the Courthouse in Los Angeles. “The only way project.” GSA selected the SOM-Clark we could recapture cost efficiencies was to team in December 2012, and Kersey says get the project under contract as quickly the $343 million building was completed as we could, which was by design-build,” in just 43 months without ostensible Allen says. Realizing this facility