Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Justice Center, Scottsdale Arizona Architecture
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Justice Center
Modern Sonoran Desert Building, Arizona, USA – design by Gould Evans Architects
Apr 20, 2019
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Justice Center
Design: Gould Evans, Architects
Location: Sonoran Desert, Arizona, USA
The Justice Center is a 93,000 SF, tribal court and practitioners? building located on 4.3 acres of Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land in the Sonoran Desert. It sits at the edge of an existing tribal government complex near the border between sovereign tribal land and the metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona.

A non-tribal team worked with the tribal community on the project. Working across the border involved the multifaceted issues of establishing cross-cultural relationships, devising a system of communication, and the rigorous and empathetic work of developing deeper cultural understanding about history, place and justice in an evolving tribal community. The resulting building is an architectural meditation on its edge condition. Like the Community itself, the building negotiates its presence in a myriad of identities. Building and Site
The building responds to its site, which is long in the east-west axis and narrow in the north-south. Consistent with tribal tradition, the entry faces east to greet the rising sun and the tribe?s sacred mountain. Two-story volume houses seven courtrooms tha...