Houston, TX (17 October 2011) – The Harris County Jury Plaza, designed by PageSoutherlandPage, received a Merit Award at the 2011 National Celebration of Architecture & Design sponsored by the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA). The 55^th national conference was held in San Diego, California.

The 33,500-square-foot project is the centerpiece for the recently consolidated Harris County Courts complex. Located in the center of a nine-square-block campus, the facility is the initial point of contact for jurors serving five courthouse/judicial facilities.

The Jury Plaza building is 85% below-grade; despite the underground nature of the facility, the glass pavilion creates a dramatic sense of openness so lobbies on both levels are full of light. Four underground assembly rooms – each of which accommodates 250 people–feed civil, criminal, juvenile and family courts via secure pedestrian tunnels. The assembly rooms are spacious and feature stadium-style theater seating.

A major goal was to design a building that has minimal impact on the surrounding buildings and green spaces – to preserve the site as a public park and create a lively plaza that is green, shady and as open as possible to offer a respite for pedestrians during the hot Texas summer.

To facilitate secure passage of jurors in all weather, the facility connects to an existing adjoining sloping pedestrian tunnel which connects to the Criminal Justice Center, Civil Courthouse, Juvenile Justice Center, Family Law Center, County Jail and a parking garage. The site slopes substantially due to its proximity to Buffalo Bayou, and serious flood protection considerations, including massive flood doors, were implemented due to that adjacency and recent flood events.

PageSoutherlandPage team members included Jeff Bricker, Ken Black, Marissa Yu, Rob Owens, Aaron Jones, Ron Gilbert, Ernie Galvan, Andy Phan, Jose Gonzalez, Trinisha Bugg, Joanna Yaghooti, Gladis Oviedo-Garcia, Marcus Martinez and Blair Satterfield.

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