At a confluence of railways and three of the busiest trunk roads in the Highlands, the Longman area of Inverness is a cornucopia of forestry suppliers, agricultural and builders merchants, truck dealerships and warehouses stacked with Gore-Tex, kayaks and karabiners.  All the paraphernalia of the outdoor preoccupations of northern Scotland can be found in showrooms and sheds scattered between the railway station and the Moray Firth coastline.  The contrast between sprawling Longman and the compact and handsome city centre is heightened by the abruptness of their railway enforced separation — making the location of the new Inverness Justice Centre on the ‘wrong’ side of the tracks all the more important to an understanding of the success of the design. 

The Inverness Justice Centre (IJC) by architect Reiach & Hall is a pioneering building in three important respects. Firstly, and uniquely in the context of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, the IJC incorporates the Sheriff Court, Crown Office Procurator Fiscal and Justice of the Peace Court alongside voluntary and public sector organisations. These include the Citizens Advice Bureau, Families Outside, Scottish Women’s Aid and Victim Support Scotland as well as Police Scotland, social workers and the NHS. Second, the building brings a new focus and sensibility to the protection and support of victims, witnesses and litigants. Thirdly, and in architectural terms no less of a challenge, the building posits a new role for a contingent and often overlooked part of the city of Inverness.

Locating the new Courts in Longman makes practical sense. The availability of a large site close to the historic center, usefully adjacent to existing Police Scotland premises and being well provided by transport links to the wider region would seem to provide the necessary strategic justification. Nevertheless in terms of townscape and the history of Inverness the location is far from expected. While the IJC can be seen as a step towards a re-evaluation of the administrative, historic and cultural centre of gravity of the city, the new building is at least for the timebeing required to perform an improbable act of reconciliation between the provisional aspects of its context and the societal importance of its programme.   

The key move in bringing about this reconciliation is bold and highly effective. With little meaningful civic context to respond to the building presents a narrow face to the main road, freeing up half the site as foreground to the main public façade of the building that instead runs transversally away from the road.  This invention of an urban setting is generous to the surroundings in the provision of greenery and landscaped relief while also flexible in terms of the future development of adjacent sites. Most importantly it allows the IJC to step back from its context and in so doing establish a sense of permanence and gravitas. This sense is then developed and reinforced through the simple trabeated form of the building exterior, expressed along the length of the main east facing elevation through crisply formed pilasters with a shift in the grid to Longman Road in order to create a sheltered and layered entrance.

The generosity of approach is reflected in the public interior of the building.  Accommodation is set back along much of the length of the main elevation in order to provide a lofty waiting area and a two storey thoroughfare.  Offices and support services are congregated near the public entrance with access to two courtrooms at ground level and four larger and grander courtrooms on the upper level. The depth of plan required to achieve this is then belied by three compact courtyards that introduce light, fresh air and high quality landscape away from the perimeter. This is the first clue as to the humane design approach that runs throughout the interior of the building: spaces that require utmost privacy and protection are nevertheless daylit and provided with an exterior outlook by these penetrations. The control of seclusion and security continues through the design of interview and waiting rooms, including facilities for children and vulnerable witnesses. There is a palpable sense of protection and calm achieved both through the sequencing of rooms and the material fabric of the architecture. Exposed insitu concrete soffits and columns, the abundance of daylight and clarity of expression make this a readily comprehensible building for the visitor.     

A similarly elemental approach has been taken in achieving acoustic and environmental performance.  Durability and simplicity have been prioritised, for example through the use of natural ventilation to all spaces in the building except the individual courtrooms. The reinforced concrete primary structure incorporates GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag) to reduce embodied CO2 while providing substantial thermal mass. The use of concrete also simplifies the acoustic strategy where inherent mass again plays a fundamental role in addition to the elimination of potential ‘gaps’ in the fabric.

As a consequence of the integration of technology into the building the IJC has been well positioned for ‘conducting business’ even during the pandemic. The building facilitates the secure procurement of vulnerable witness statements and, where appropriate, remote jury attendance. In contrast at the north end of the plan the Faculty of Advocates have brought ancient heavily wrought oak and leather furniture from their previous quarters into the new space together with antique legal texts lining the shelves. The interplay between the necessarily progressive and conservative aspects of this building is both amusing and reassuring.

While the majority of the building has been developed with consistent material simplicity and an even hand in detail the courtrooms themselves are a point of departure. Formally specific the courtrooms bring a sense of disconnection and introversion with a distinct material approach that contrasts with the rest of the building.  The use of timber linings brings intimacy alongside a more obvious degree of craft. Although not quite buildings within the building the courtrooms are necessarily separate, with the participants in a case introduced and choreographed by the architecture according to their role. The design places a substantial hierarchical emphasis to these rooms, both as a matter of protocol; for example in the raised position of the sheriff; and through the manipulation of spatial effect with the raising of skylights in the upper courtrooms above the normal field of view and the compression of space to the public gallery behind the accused.  

The simplicity and legibility of this building greatly contributes to a feeling of security but there is also gentle wit at play in the contrast engendered with the becloaked and bewigged theatre of the courts. If the key feat of the exterior lies with its invention of the civic in an indifferent context then internally it is the achievement of a heightened consideration for individual dignity and safety, subtly combined with the mechanisms and mannerisms of the justice system.