Gallery
Description
Sustainable design and cutting-edge technology enhance human comfort and safety in the Durham Consolidated Courthouse, located on a brownfield site in downtown Oshawa. The 446,000 sf facility more than doubles space dedicated to regional justice functions and mitigates the stress of the litigation process with ample daylighting, most notable in a two-story lobby flooded with light from the west and north. As justice planner and associate architect, Cannon Design provided space planning, interior design, and FF&E services for the project, which won a 2010 Award of Merit from the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario.
The building is Ontario’s most technologically advanced courthouse, with nonintrusive security systems equipped to avert crime and natural disasters. Two remote video testimony rooms accommodate vulnerable and child witnesses, and one jury courtroom is equipped for simultaneous interpretation of proceedings into other languages for visitors to the public gallery. The Courthouse is also Ontario’s most energy-efficient new government building and the first such building to achieve LEED Gold certification.
Distinctions
- The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
- RAIC Award for Green Building
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“This building revitalizes the downtown core and provides a contextual response to a complex architectural challenge. The project provides landscaped open areas and a gateway to the downtown.”