01. Evicted Discussion
- Part One of Matthew Desmond's Evicted was due today, and we spent the first 20 minutes of class discussing our initial reactions
- General consensus was that the situations presented were complex for everyone involved, with no clear winner
- Everyone appreciated the balance in the book between subjective narrative and more objective statistics and facts, especially in the footnotes
Big Take-Away: Evicted is presenting a good introduction to this complicated topic, focusing mainly on the social and human aspects of housing problems with an addition of legal and institutional detail.
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| Paul Burke introducing himself |
02. Paul Burke Presentation
- The rest of the session was discussion with Paul Burke, the administrator of the Massachusetts Housing Court
- We were also joined by Dan Jackson, the Executive Director of the NU Law Lab
- Paul discussed why Housing Court is such a good place to explore new ideas for the judicial system
- 70% of people in Housing Court are self-represented
- Has tested ways to increase community access through Housing Specialists and Lawyer-for-a-Day programs
- Covers the entire State, and has a wide variety of spaces and buildings
- Presentation covered some of the restrictions we will face going forward
- Many judicial facilities do not allow electronic devices
- Funds are limited, and controlled by Division of Capital Asset Management
- Major revisions to buildings require long-term planning
- With this background, we dove into the specifics of the Edward Brooke Courthouse, which we will be visiting next week
- The building is situated on a triangular site on the edge of the former West End
- Less than 6 months after opening they undertook a major interior renovation and reorganization due to other judicial facilities closing
- This has resulted in lots of strange spaces and odd spatial layouts
- In contrast, Paul showed us the designs for the new Trial Court building in Lowell
- The facility has a very clear programmatic break up, with each area designed specifically for the division of court that will be using it
- This is especially shown in the unique circulation pathways for different types of users, from prisoners to judges to juries to the public
- Financial constraints are already present, with a reduction in planned sustainability measures such as solar panels and LEED accreditation
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| Reviewing the drawings |
Big Take-Away: The architectural and programmatic requirements for judicial buildings are intensive and complicated, and combined with tight budgets can result in spaces that do not work best for any of their users. However, the buildings have grand ambitions as a house for justice and the staff who work within are determined to do the best they can. Our design ideas can begin to help these ideas regain prominence.