Dane County Courthouse

Justice for All

Project team finds room for courthouse

By Jennifer Pfaff

It seems everything happens in threes at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison.

There are three entrances, three hallways, three sets of elevators and three staircases. There are essentially three distinct ways to travel the building, although few people will ever experience all of them, said Jerry Olson, managing principal of Durrant Group Inc., Hartland.

“There needed to be a separation of circulation,” he said. “There are three groups of people who use the building and need to be kept separate.

“The first is the secure inmates; they cannot cross any other circulation path. The second is the judges and courthouse staff, and the third is the public. The reason for that separation is the safety of the patrons.”

In addition, giving judges, bailiffs and other staff their own entrance, parking area and means of traveling throughout the building reduces the risk that jurors or others involved in cases will overhear or see information that might affect an ongoing trial, Olson said.

“All of the judges and staff who support the records are behind the courtrooms,” he said. “All of the public activity is in front of the courtrooms.”

Inmates brought into the building are guided through a secure vertical path. Elevators and doors in the courthouse can be controlled from a nearby safety center.

Cameras, along with a variety of other safety features, help bailiffs keep track of inmates, Olson said.

It was this need for modern safety features that drove the construction of the $31.2 million, 10-story justice center, which is adjacent to Madison’s Public Safety Building.

The center was built using sustainable concepts, including fixtures and furniture from the former courthouse and products made from recycled materials. It houses 20 courtrooms and two rooms that can be converted for courtroom use in the future. It also features a café, law library, media room, jury assembly room, juvenile court and administrative spaces.


	Project Name: Dane County Courthouse Location: Madison Submitting Company: Durrant Group Inc., Hartland General Contractor: Miron Construction Co. Inc., Neenah Architect: Durrant Group Inc. Engineer: Durrant Group Inc. Owner: Dane County Project Cost: $31.2 million Project Size: 257,039 square feet Start Date: April 2003 Completion Date: December 2005

The need for separate circulation paths presented a variety of design challenges for a project with limited land availability, Olson said. And the lack of land presented the greatest challenge of all.

“The site, the site, the site,” he said. “The site [Dane County] gave us originally and the program didn’t match.”

The original plan called for a 250,000-square-foot building, and the site could only accommodate about 150,000 square feet. So the county executive and a design committee developed a new plan requiring about 216,000 square feet — still too much building for the designated location behind the Public Safety Building.

The county eventually purchased additional land and tore down two office buildings to make room for the courthouse. Even then, the space available was triangular and difficult to work on, Olson said.

The building sits atop an extreme slope, with the front corner about two floors above the nearby intersection. It made pouring footings difficult and left almost no room for staging.

So the project team used the nearby Dane County Coliseum to store equipment, which had to be driven over every day before morning rush hour, Olson said.

The difficult site also affected materials decisions.

“We took a look at masonry and the scaffolding that would need to go up eight stories,” Olson said. “That was difficult to look at and led to looking at precast concrete.”

The result is a modern courthouse that defies some of the tradition of justice facilities.

“There’s a history of courthouse design that goes back to our ancestors,” Olson said. “There’s a feeling a courthouse should have columns and an entry processional.

We tried to take that on as much as we could, but the design had to be in today’s nomenclature.”