Renfrew County Courthouse • Pembroke, Ontario, Canada The new Renfrew County Courthouse consolidates the Superior and Ontario courts from four separate locations into a single facility. It houses six courtrooms including the restored heritage courtroom, a child-friendly courtroom specifically designed to meet the needs of child victims and witnesses, two settlement rooms, two jury deliberation rooms, a motion room, crown attorney offices, courts administration, victim witness services offices, local law association offices, external agencies’ day offices, and holding facilities. The project is located on a prominent downtown site and involves the renovation and addition to an existing complex of historic justice buildings dating back to the 1860’s. Rather than diminishing the original architecture, the Renfrew County Courthouse project enhances the 1860’s landmark courthouse and reveals aspects of the adjacent historic registry and jail. Two deferential wings are set back on either side of the restored courthouse, reinforcing its prominence along the main street.
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The new forecourt landscape focuses on the ceremonial door of the historic courthouse, while a new main entrance addressing security and barrier free accessibility needs, is created to the side. The entry leads into a two-storey light-filled atrium wrapping the original courthouse exposing the previously concealed jail, and presents these weathered stone buildings in contrast to the contemporary materials and detailing of the new space. The original spaces such as the restored heritage courtroom, maintain their original purposes where possible. Others are given
new lives: cells are reused as interview rooms, the registry building is reused as a law library, and its front façade becomes an artifact displayed within the two-storey lawyer’s lounge. The original jail walls are exposed in several courtrooms and reappear in the holding areas and other back of house spaces. The interplay of old and new elements embodies not only the weight of history and precedent attached to Ontario’s judicial system but also the concept of law as a living entity that has evolved over centuries reflecting the values of the society it serves and governs.
