Qimonda as a hall of justice
The form and function of a structure like a public building or an airport evoke certain meanings to people who interact with it.
These interpretations, according to architect-designer Priyanka Sondhi in her masters thesis "Architecture as Communication," are also "subject to the physical form, location and functional importance of the building inasmuch as they are to the association of meaning by a user based on his or her personal lens."
Take the case of the Qimonda IT Center Building at pier area where the Cebu City courts are located. After the structural integrity of the Marcelo Fernan Palace of Justice was compromised by the 2013 earthquake, courts in Cebu City were transferred to Qimonda.
It was announced as a temporary arrangement until a new judiciary building complex is built on a vacant lot that the Supreme Court hopes some local government would donate. Court officials were looking at the South Road Properties as the ideal location for the court complex -that is, if Cebu City will donate a lot for that purpose.
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno herself admitted that while they are ready with the architectural design of the court complex, there is no specific date to implement the plan. Meanwhile, we have to make do with a Cebu City Hall of Justice at the pier area housed in a building that looks like a concrete, giant version of a box for the transport of game birds and other poultry.
I don't mean to disparage the building's design considering that probably it's a design fit for an IT complex as was originally intended. In fairness to the Supreme Court, the building may perhaps be the only structure fit and available at that time to meet the urgent need to put Cebu City courts under one roof.
But we hope that this arrangement is temporary, at most lasting for three years more or less. Because if one were to examine the current building's form and function as the house of Cebu City's courts using Sondhi's notion of architecture as communication, it becomes clear that a new court complex must be built at some better location as envisioned.
We begin with a premise that "every architectural gesture leads to interpretation by the users." These users, Sondhi said, are not just people actually inhabiting the building but also people who interact with the structure while walking past it and living around it. So, what's wrong with the present form, location, and design of the hall of justice in Qimonda?
Justice connotes a balance among conflicting forces of principles and perspectives in society based on laws and regulations that more or less conform to fairness and equity. The surroundings in Qimonda are not exactly conducive to foster that balance. Large cargo trucks competing with small cars on the road and rumbling through the dusty, gray landscape of the pier area greet the litigants and their lawyers as they approach the court building. Before one even steps into the building, hazard and disorder are already suggested in the court-bound person's mind.
The distance between the building's open parking space and its only available entrance exceeds far beyond comfort, considering the dusty walk baking under heat of the sun or the muddy walk through the rain, either way connoting an unwelcome atmosphere.
While the interior of the building, inside the courtrooms in particular, is a much bigger improvement from the old hall of justice in terms of furnishings and comfort, the bare narrow hallways give a feeling of constraint from being in a crowded space.
This gets worse when you are inside the building's perpetually crowded elevator. Meanwhile, the stairs which lead directly to the third floor are by design virtually hidden as the mainstream means of accessing the upper floors. The building's foyer area has limited space and lacks design features for users and visitors to interact or to bask in the building's supposedly grand purpose.
I am not writing this to pin the blame on any institution. I am writing this in hopes that something can be done to improve the form and function of our court building befitting its purpose as the refuge of people who seek justice.
If current resources don't permit a new court building, perhaps we can make some meaningful innovations in the meantime. Lessons, for instance, can be learned from how GMR-Megawide vastly improved the services at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport terminal through smart design changes.
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