While researching high-security courtrooms several years ago, architect Claudina Sula went to watch a high-profile biker gang murder trial in London, Ont.

During breaks the spectators, including the family and friends of both the accused men and the victims, would spill into the same cramped space outside the courtroom, ratcheting up the tension.

New courthouses are being designed to alleviate some of that stress by having the public spaces and waiting areas as open and airy as possible.

“What we think is really important now is that those public spaces have access to daylight,” Sula says, referring to the skylights and windows overlooking the city incorporated in the new Thunder Bay courthouse. “It has the ability to calm people, because these are such stressful environments, but it also has the ability to connect people back down to the broader community.”

It’s one of the ways courthouse design has shifted over the years to embody a justice system that is modern, open and accessible to the public it serves, she says.

And it’s also one way the new Toronto courthouse could differ from most of its five current locations across the city. The new building will consolidate the provincial courts into one highrise west of city hall on Armoury St. - the site of a former parking lot.

The two teams competing for the project were announced last month and the final proposal for the building won’t be announced until the fall of 2017 — but architects who have designed courthouses across the province say there are some key features the new courthouse will have.

The most complex requirement is the area the public doesn’t get to see: a “secret” warren of corridors and offices that only judges and some court staff can access, and — kept entirely separate — the prisoner holding cells and routes to get them to and from the courtrooms.

Paul Berton, a partner with +VG Architects which isn’t involved in the Toronto project, says figuring out the “three layers of circulation” — for the public, judges and court staff, and prisoners — is the most challenging part of designing a courthouse.

There also need to be three separate entrances to the building, one for the public, one for judges and one for prisoners.

Security is another top priority, Berton says.

It’s become standard for courthouses to have only one public entrance so that everyone who enters undergoes electronic scanning. They are also built with various threats in mind, from truck bombs to shootings, resulting in street-level barriers and reinforced exteriors.

Open, light spaces inside the courthouse with no dead-end corridors or hidden nooks, also improve security as well as making courthouses easier to navigate, Sula says.

“Transparency is a big thing,” Berton says. “Courthouses are supposed to be seen as doing justice.”

Part of that is also being able to walk into a courthouse and not feel like it is a Kafkaesque nightmare, he says.

“Most people going into a courtroom don’t want to be in there, and if they are going in there and they are feeling intimidated or scared because they can’t find their way around . . . all of those have psychological effects on people that as an architect one would try to mitigate by keeping them open, airy, bright and light.”

Some layout inspiration is being taken from shopping malls, which are designed with a “visual spine” that feels like walking down a street, he says.

Input from the local community can also be important, says Sula, a principal at Adamson Associates, which isn’t involved in the Toronto project but was involved in designing the Thunder Bay courthouse completed in 2014.

An indigenous elders committee was consulted on the design of that courthouse which includes a garden space and an “aboriginal conference settlement room” intended for community use as well as court use, she says.

The new Toronto courthouse will have an indigenous persons court, and space for smudging ceremonies, a Ministry of the Attorney General spokesperson said in an email.

Both Sula and Berton say the location of a courthouse is also critical not just in determining what is possible in terms of design, but also whether it can properly serve the community.

Currently there are courthouses located in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York as well as downtown allowing some people involved in the justice system to attend a court in the area where they live.

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On the other hand the courthouses outside downtown — particularly the courthouse at 2201 Finch Ave. W. — can be hard to access by transit, Sula says.

“Without having these institutional buildings on (major) transit lines, it’s injustice. It really is,” she said. “If you have to rely on a car to get there or five bus routes, that’s not good access to justice.”

Correction - November 25, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the new building will he a highrise east of city hall in a former parking lot space.

