Public architecture: courthouse design, due process and dignity

Principal Investigator(s): Dr Emma Rowden

About us

Representing over fifteen years of scholarship taking place across several funded research projects and multidisciplinary collaborative partnerships, the site and design of courthouses as an archetypal public space has been examined extensively in this sub-theme. Topics explored in this body of work include the role of design and architecture on:

the introduction of videolink technology and remote participation in court proceedings
courthouse safety and security
a history of procurement processes and the briefing of architects who design law courts
the preparation of litigants for the trial and the intersection of courthouse design and broader conceptions of fairness, equity, dignity, human rights and due process.

Project methods are eclectic and range from: collecting and analysing historical archival data, conducting and analysing interviews, as well as producing films, photos, sketches and drawings.

Remote spaces diagram

Part of

Leadership

Dr Emma Rowden

erowden@brookes.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer

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Research impact

These projects have resulted in a wide range of scholarly and practical outputs. These include:

The monograph The Democratic Courthouse: a Modern History of Design, Due Process and Dignity, coauthored with Linda Mulcahy that charts a changing history of ideas about competing aspirations towards transparency, gravitas, majesty, security, fairness and authority have been negotiated, and the extent to which the oft expressed ideals of equality and participation have been realised in built form.
A paper that questions the potential loss of the courthouse as a significant presence in the urban landscape, and the impacts this might have on the place of law, on legal authority and due process, based upon empirical research findings regarding the use of videolinks in Australian courts.
Coauthored and sole authored papers and book chapters on the impact of videolinks on expert testimony, the role of the judge in courts, sentencing hearings, virtual magistrates courts, and vulnerable child witness testimony.
The highly regarded and awarded suite of information videos to prepare litigants to attend their online hearings, available on Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals YouTube channel, developed through the Supporting Online Justice project. The project that led to these films has won several accolades, including a 2022 University of Oxford Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation and Engagement Award.
Various design guidelines for the implementation of videoconferencing facilities across the justice system, including the well-cited Gateways to Justice design guidelines developed from Rowden’s doctoral findings. These guidelines have influenced the design of courthouses (see, for instance, the Coffs Harbour Courthouse, as discussed in Rowden and Jones, 2018).
Invitations to contribute to: public debate about the questionable relevance, justness and utility of the dock in criminal courts, and evaluations of virtual juries.

These collective contributions have led to invitations by policy makers, the judiciary, not-for-profit organisations and fellow academics internationally to discuss the design of justice environments and the implementation and integration of videoconferencing technologies in justice processes.

Past collaborative funded projects

Past collaborative funded projects on the intersections between law courts, court participants and design include:

2020 Virtual Justice: Enhancing accessibility, participation and procedural justice in family courts and tribunals during the COVID-19 pandemic, research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19 grant call. Rowden: Co-Investigator (Lead Investigator: Professor Linda Mulcahy, University of Oxford, collaborating with one other academic).
2014 Design and Due Process: facilitating participation in the justice system, research project funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant. Rowden: Co-Investigator (Lead Investigator: Professor Linda Mulcahy, University of Oxford).
2013 Just Spaces: security without prejudice in the wireless courtroom, research project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Rowden: Chief Investigator (Lead Investigator: Professor David Tait, Western Sydney University, collaborating with four other academics spanning six institutions internationally, and seven industry partners).
2013 Contested Visions of Justice: designing the space of law in Australia, research project, funded by the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme. Rowden: Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
2007 Fortress or Sanctuary? Enhancing court safety by managing people, places and processes, research project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Rowden: Research Associate. (Lead Investigator: Professor David Tait, Western Sydney University, collaborating with nine other academics spanning eight institutions, and five industry partners).
2007 Gateways to Justice: improving video-mediated communications for justice participants, research project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Rowden: Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry) PhD candidate). (Lead Investigator: Professor David Tait, Western Sydney University, collaborating with seven other academics spanning five institutions, and eight industry partners).